


oh you fool, there are rules (the reckoning begins)

by truthbealiar



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Daenerys Targaryen, F/M, Fix-It, Jon Snow is King in the North, Littlefinger actually Does Things, Past Rape/Non-con, Pol!Jon, Season 8 Rewrite, insofar that she is written accurately to the books/show, kingmaker!Sansa, no concrit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-05-28 06:19:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 39,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19388257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truthbealiar/pseuds/truthbealiar
Summary: For some reason, it’s Theon Greyjoy’s voice in Rickon's head as he begins to run.“If you ever find yourself on the wrong end of a bow, don’t run straight.”- or -Baelish bastard. Lady Lannister. Lady Bolton.All names for one woman, the caged wolf who had learned how to play the game better than anyone. She would win the game for her family. She would do her duty to her king and country.Never let it be said the daughter of Eddard Stark was without honor.





	1. Prologue: Rickon I

**Author's Note:**

> Well here we are! I've been mulling over a Season 8 rewrite for well over a month now, and at long last, I'm finally posting it. While this fic will be primarily a Season 8 rewrite, there will be _several_ major departures from season 7, and even a few from 6x09/6x10. This fic is my attempt to explore more of the political sphere, in the face of major conflicts from multiple angles. Several characters who died in show canon will be present in this fic - several of the characters who survived in the show will die in this fic. (Neither Jon nor Sansa will die!) This fic will contain Jon/Daenerys, written as a one-sided relationship from the angle of Jon manipulating Daenerys to benefit the cause of the living.
> 
> This fic is written for my enjoyment/catharsis after the mess of season 8. As such, I am not looking for constructive criticism. You're more than welcome to disagree with decisions I've made, or how I've chosen to write something, however, please do not do so in the comments.
> 
> The first chapter is the prologue, set in 6x09, "The Battle of the Bastards". Recognizable dialogue is from that episode. The chapters after will be taking place in season 8, with occasional flashbacks to past events.
> 
> The title of this fic comes from Lord Huron's "The Yawning Grave".

Rickon Stark had been born within the walls of Winterfell, to the sound of his mother's screams, and the dusting of a light summer snow. The story had been relayed many times in an older sister's soft, dreamy voice, painting the inception of his life in lovely, pastel colors. Rickon had loved the story. It had perfectly matched his own rosy-hued memories of a laughter soaked past, the sound of wood clapping against wood over the pleasant roar of a king - not in battle, but in camaraderie. 

It no longer matched Rickon's world. He felt as though his body bore many wounds, red and oozing and ugly to look upon, drenched in blood and festering anger so deep it was nearly black. There was no sound of wooden swords meeting each other in the training yards, as boys acted as boys. There was only pain and suffering, and those that inflicted it upon him. Rickon didn't know the taste of summer snow on his tongue, because he could not imagine a world in which his mouth was not full of coppery blood. 

An older sister had complained once, about the look of the North. Rickon remembered it, and he hadn't understood what she meant, talking about the drabness of it all, the dark colors and ugly barrenness. Everything looked grey, she had said, as if her own head of hair wasn't the brightest spot in the entirety of the North, somehow brighter than all of her brothers, even though they too had Tully hair, as it was called. Rickon didn't understand then, and he didn't understand now. He didn't see gray. All he could see was red.

He wondered what it was like, not to be angry. He wondered if he would ever live in a world that wasn't swathed in its hues. He very much doubted it, and he clenched his fists at his sides with the realization, the tendons of his wrists flexing uncomfortably against the rough rope circled around him, tugging him forward as if on a leash like a _dog_. The world made him angry, but there were men who made him angrier. Rickon bared his teeth into snarling fury as Ramsay Bolton approached. He was one such man.

Rickon knew why he was here. He knew why Ramsay had brought him out, why the traitorous Umber lord had taken him in the first place, and with him, the head of his beloved Shaggydog. Rickon was here because he had been born within the halls of Winterfell, shouting with his very first breath, under the fall of a light summer snow. Rickon was here because he had been born a Stark. The last Stark.

The Bolton bastard had claimed his brother was alive, but Rickon knew better. The man who dared to claim Rickon's father's seat, also boasted of a redheaded wife more beautiful than any Winter Rose - Rickon's sister. He knew better than to believe that too.

And yet, as Ramsay Bolton tugged him closer, Rickon's eyes scanned the field across from the Bolton men. There was an army there - not as large as Ramsay's, but they were _there_. Someone had come to fight him. Rickon's heart clenched in his chest, and he squinted across the expanse. Standing tall at the front of the opposing army, it almost looked like the figure Rickon remembered in his dreams, curly haired and dour. But Jon Snow was dead. The Starks were dead. Rickon was the last of them, no matter what Ramsay said. He knew better than to trust him. His direwolf was dead. Osha was dead. Ramsay had delighted in telling him that. Rickon had believed him then. He had taken far too much delight, drawing out the story, the way he had drawn the knife out of her body. Ramsay only lived to inflict pain, and watch it spread across one's eyes, a perversion of a flower blooming. 

Rickon swallowed as Ramsay approached. He wanted to be brave. Brave like his lord father. Brave like his brother Robb, who was dead. Brave like his brother Bran, who had gone beyond the Wall to die there. Brave like his lady mother who he couldn't remember, except for a sad face and the bright red of her scarred, bare palms. He was a Stark, and he would die, but he would die brave. Bastard brave, even if he was trueborn, because his bastard brother who had died had always been braver than them all. Rickon had whispered it to his sister before. His breath had tickled her brown hair, and she had swatted him away and giggled, before tugging him back, making him repeat himself. 

Jon, he had told her then, was the bravest, because Mother was obviously the scariest, and he risked her wrath every day. Ned Stark might have been a war hero, but Catelyn Stark was the war itself. Rickon had heard someone say it once. He didn't know what it meant, then. Now, he couldn't remember enough to remember if it was true. 

He wanted to be brave. He wanted to be brave like all of them, and if anger were enough to make a man brave - even one young as Rickon because he _was_ a man, he had to be - Rickon would be the bravest of all. He felt more like a wolf than a boy, letting the dark hole of Shaggydog's death consume him, swallowing up the human and making him a direwolf instead. But there was something sharp and foul in his belly that he knew was fear. Rickon Stark was going to die today, and he wanted to die brave, but he was so afraid he felt that he was choking on his own fear and anger all mixed up into something horrid and acrid in his throat. Rickon didn't want to die. But men like Ramsay Bolton would not give him a choice. 

It was the thought Rickon clung onto, furious and terrified and trembling with the force of it all, as Ramsay approached. His lips curled back over his teeth, certain that he looked more direwolf than boy, but his hands trembled where they were bound. _Be brave, be brave_ , he reminded himself. _Robb was brave when he became a king. Bran was brave when he saved me. Be brave now._ Bran had once told Rickon a favorite saying of their father's; the only time a man can be brave is when he is afraid. 

Rickon wondered if his father ever had to be as brave as this.

There is a dagger in Ramsay's hand as he approaches, and all notions of bravery seem to fly out of Rickon at once. He hadn't given much thought to how he would die, but somehow even when assuming its certainty, he had managed to think of it as a terrifying spectre without pain. The knife meant blood. The knife meant _pain_. 

Ramsay seemed to detect the fear in Rickon's eyes, for his smile grew wider as he drew closer. He lifted the dagger, and Rickon's heart was thumping so loudly in his chest that it drowned out all noise, even the stamping and snorting of the mounts flanking Rickon on either side. He kept his eyes open as the dagger was raised higher. Bran had told him of witnessing an execution, of being told to keep his eyes open. He had been told to be brave in that moment. Rickon's own eyes stayed wide, but an ugly tendril of shame curled within him, for Rickon had found that he was simply too terrified to even allow his lids to close.

The knife was brought down swiftly, and all of a sudden Rickon's hands were free.

He was stunned by Ramsay's action, Stark eyes darting between his own unbound hands, and the cruel darkness of the bastard's eyes. The man seemed to take just as much delight in Rickon's confusion as he had his fear. Sheathing the dagger, he reached out and tousled Rickon's hair, his maniacal smile widening as Rickon instinctively pulled away.

"Do you like games, little man?" Ramsay's voice was cold and crazed, and Rickon remained silent, refusing to grant the satisfaction of answering him. "Let's play a game."

Fear wrapped itself around Rickon's heart. He had heard whispers from the servants of the sort of games Ramsay Bolton liked to play. The evidence was scattered across the field, the flayed bodies, crucified upside down marking various points of the land. Rickon would become one of them, he was certain of it.

"Run to your brother," Ramsay instructed, insisting upon pretending that whoever waited for Rickon on the other side of the field was Jon Snow. Rickon was the last of his family, all that was left. And soon he too, would be gone. "The sooner you make it to him, the sooner you get to see him again." 

Rickon just stared at Ramsay, his mind slowly trying to work through what the bastard had said. He couldn't be letting him go. Rickon might have only been eleven, but he knew better than to trust that. Ramsay liked to play games, all the servants said it. He had held the head of Rickon's direwolf, he had surely murdered Osha. He insisted upon this mummer's farce of Rickon's dead brothers and sisters when all the North knew he was the last of the Starks, and he would die today.

But the order had been clear. _Run_. 

"That's it. That's the game. Easy. Ready? Go!"

He stumbled forward a few steps, shuffling his feet and glancing between the opposing army, and where Ramsay stood behind him. His mind felt like the molasses he remembered from one special feast - Rickon couldn't recall what the celebration had been for - thick and slow moving, and utterly sticky, imported from Dorne. Rickon turned his head back to Ramsay once more, still waiting for the man's arm, long and clawlike, to dart forward and wrench his shoulder back, all in the name of bestowing and extinguishing any hope of escape. That was when Rickon saw it. The longbow. 

He began to run.

The anger churning deep in Rickon's belly propelled him forward. He had never been particularly fast, but he was certain he was running faster than he ever had before. Rickon was not fast but he was full of fury and righteous anger. He would die today, but there was the tiniest chance he might live. Rickon hated Ramsay for giving him that hope. 

For some reason, it’s Theon Greyjoy’s voice in his head as he begins to run. 

“If you ever find yourself on the wrong end of a bow, don’t run straight.”

Greyjoy was another name that made fury well within him, the sting of his betrayal still keen and painful. He had been Robb's brother, he had been a brother to _all_ of them. And then he had taken Winterfell for himself, stolen it. Now it was Ramsay's. Rickon thought he might have hated Theon as much as he hated Ramsay, as much as he hated the golden king who had taken his father's head. But he remembered Theon too, and he remembered watching him in the yards. He had been the very best archer, everyone had said so. Even Jon would admit it. It was almost unnatural, some had claimed, the way Theon knew a bow and arrow. His aim almost always flew true. 

And so Rickon pushed past the anger, and let Greyjoy's words carry him this way and that. He darted to the left as he heard the familiar _whoosh_ of an arrow, his heart hammering, lungs burning with the strain of trying to push himself further much faster. He could see a figure in the distance, galloping toward him on a horse. Rickon's hope grew, unbidden, within his chest. He might make it. _He might live._

Breathing harshly, Rickon continued to weave left and right, forcing himself not to despair. It slowed him down, he knew it. But no arrows had met their mark yet. He was still alive. Another arrow landed a short distance from his foot, and Rickon let out an involuntary gasp, but he forced himself in the direction the arrow had landed, rather than _away_ from it. " _You have to do the unexpected,_ " Theon had told him with all of the wisdom of nearly a man grown. " _An archer will be predicting your moves before you make them. Don't play into it._ "

There had been no reason for Theon Greyjoy to dole out such advice, but to prove himself knowledgeable and experienced. There was no reason to assume Rickon would ever find himself running from a band of archers, of all things. Now Rickon found himself profoundly grateful, seeing an arrow fly from the corner of his eye, landing precisely where Rickon would have been, if he had listened to instinct and scrambled away from the last arrow.

He was close, so close. He could see the rider drawing closer, closer, _closer_. It was - if Rickon had the energy to gasp while running, he would have. It was his _father_ , young and determined as he had ever seen him, bent so that he was nearly flat on his horse, reaching his arm out, holding it out to Rickon, drawing closer, closer, _closer_ , hope and tenacity bright in his eyes, fanning the flames of Rickon's own yearning in his heart until -

Rickon grasped his forearm. He felt fingers tighten around his own arm, and with a sudden roar and strength he hadn't expected, he was pulled onto the horse by the arm, his legs flailing beneath him as he scrabbled to seat himself, fingers grasping at the horse's mane, his heartbeat still beating wildly. The horse suddenly turned, heading back to the army standing at the opposite end of the field of Ramsay's. Rickon turned his head to catch a glimpse of Ramsay's expression, dark and furious, and he struggled to pull air into his burning lungs.

His body still twisted, Rickon chanced a glance at the figure, his eyes wide. It was not his father, as he had assumed at first glance. It was _Jon_. Ramsay hadn't lied. He was alive, he was here. He had saved Rickon. The hope that Rickon had allowed to push him forward across the field suddenly exploded in his chest, somehow more raw and painful than the fear, and Rickon was suddenly gasping for air, for relief, for _something_ , trying to remain upright on the saddle in front of Jon.

"Hold on Rickon, just hold on," Jon grunted out, his voice low and strained with focus as the roaring thunder of hundreds of horses suddenly overwhelmed them. The battle had begun. Rickon was alive, but for how long? New terror gripped him, and Rickon's grip tightened on the horse's mane. Jon didn't have the men, he had heard Ramsay say as much. His army was larger, Rickon could see that with his own two eyes. Was he still to die here, on this field? He chanced another glance at his brother, and he could have sworn he saw the same desperate questions reflected in Jon's own eyes, in the tense set of his mouth. There was nowhere safe for Rickon to go, not in the midst of this battle. He would still die on this field, but at least he would not die the last Stark. Jon was here. Jon had saved him, no matter for how little time.

Rickon could not have explained what happened next. It was only chaos, pure chaos. Rickon had seen violence and fighting. He was the wolf boy, Osha had always said it. Rickon had watched Shaggydog rip out a man's throat with glee. That was nothing to this. Rickon could not say when his eyes closed and when they opened, for it was all the same. Blood and bruises and the sound of steel meeting steel, the angry roar of men at war. One moment he was on a horse, and the next he was stumbling on his own two feet, still clinging near Jon - putting him in danger, Rickon was a danger, his brother would die to protect him - avoiding the spears and blades coming at him from every angle. A blade was stuffed into Rickon's hands. He barely knew how to use it - he had been six when he left Winterfell. But he stabbed and slashed with reckless abandon, unable to distinguish who was who - they were all enemies to him. All but Jon. 

It seemed to stretch on for seconds, hours, centuries. There was no end to the hell that was this battle. They were losing, Rickon could hear it. There was a circle of shields and panic in Jon's eyes. He tugged him closer toward the wall of - oh gods the wall of _bodies_. Rickon felt bile in his throat, mixed in with blood and tears that had streaked down his dirty face. Jon's face was blackened with mud and blood, but nothing was so dark as his eyes, the sharp Stark grey having turned stormy and black in the face of defeat. Rickon felt the truth of it settling in his bones as they were pushed closer and closer, the thick crush of bodies threatening to suffocate them, even as Jon swung his arms wildly, tugging Rickon up, trying to break free of the throng.

Time had ceased all meaning, but there was a horn somewhere, marking a moment. Rickon couldn't place it, the horn or the moment, but he knew everything was different the moment it sounded. The battle raged on, but Jon had stilled beside him. The thundering of horses roared again, and Rickon's head twisted wildly, this way and that - " _Don't run straight, move, zigzag, keep moving left and right,_ " - looking for the source. A swarm of new horses and riders had joined, attacking the shields, attacking Ramsay's men. Help. Help had come. 

He might yet live. They all might live.

Jon seemed to understand long before Rickon, returning to the fight with renewed vigor. Rickon wanted to cry. Was he still expected to fight? He just wanted to run, run all the way back to Winterfell and bury his face in the skirts of a mother he barely recalled. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be surrounded by blood and vomit and shit and bodies and battle. His blood was wild and his teeth were sharp, but his head hurt and his blood pounded and Rickon wanted to sob. But he couldn't leave Jon. Jon was safe, Jon had saved him. 

He barely realized what he was doing, standing nearly still, dagger hanging limply at his side, his eyes wide and unseeing as he stared at the horror of the field, struggling to make his lungs expand and contract with air. He barely noticed as rough hands suddenly grabbed him, tugging him aside, practically pushing him onto a horse, onto higher ground. He didn't understand, until suddenly Jon's hands, covered in blood and mud and strong, just like father's, were grasping his face, tugging him close, eyes dark and wide with fear and anger. "Stay here! Rickon, stay on this horse, stay safe!" 

The words were issued like a plea, a command, a _goodbye_. Rickon was too dazed to respond, but his eyes - grey like Father’s, like _Jon’s_ \- tracked Jon as he watched his half-brother climb atop his own horse and gallop off towards Winterfell, following another horsebound figure. He was leaving. He was chasing Ramsay to Winterfell. Rickon knew it as surely as he had known he would die today. He should have died today. 

Eyes wide and desperate, Rickon dug his heels into the horse, urging it after Jon, ignoring the cries of protest from the men he did not know. Rickon barely remembered this, riding. He wasn't good at it, but the horse seemed to follow the command easily enough, following well behind Jon. A Stark should have died today, Rickon _knew_ it. He couldn't explain how he knew it any more than he could explain the moment he felt Shaggydog's life end, a darkness in his body that threatened to swallow him whole. He couldn't let Jon die. He just couldn't.

The great gate to Winterfell had been destroyed by the time Rickon arrived, well after Jon and the group of soldiers that had followed him. The courtyard seemed almost still, save for the two figures in the center. Rickon squinted through the hair that had fallen into his face, the mud and blood that streaked over his eyes. It was Jon, crouched over, fists flying in fury, his eyes as dark as any winter storm, hands covered in the blood of the man underneath him. _Ramsay._

Rickon felt as though his heart might leap through his throat along with the contents of his stomach, but all of a sudden Jon seemed to tire, holding his fists aloft, but no longer bringing them down against Ramsay's face. He seemed to stare at something as he climbed to his feet, the anger draining out of him as he stared ahead. Rickon's eyes followed Jon's, and his heart gave another painful lurch. There, cloaked in blue, hair like fire against the snow and mud, was his _mother_. 

Another painful leap of his heart, and suddenly Rickon allowed the darkness to swallow him, the tears and blood and mud and snow all becoming blurs as Rickon slid sideways off of his horse, into oblivion.

A Stark had meant to die today. He still might.

* * *

It was the sound of a sweet song that drew Rickon from the dark, comforting swell of sleep. He let his eyes remain closed for several moments, but as the voice continued to break through the foggy remnant of his battle worn mind, Rickon slowly began to blink, squinting against the sudden brightness, even if the only source of light in the room came from the fire crackling in the hearth, reflecting off of a woman's shiny strands of coppery hair.

"Mother!" Rickon cried, suddenly sitting upright in his bed, staring at the bright blue eyes that had swam through his memories more times than he could truly remember. "Why did you leave?" The words tumbled from his mouth before he could stop them, or think of something better to say. The hurt was sharp enough, like a blade, to slice through the dizziness and sleepiness that made Rickon's limbs feel heavy, even as he reached out for the woman, now staring at him horrified, with tears welling in her bright blue eyes.

"Rickon," her voice was soft and pleading, a very slight tremble underneath. Rickon frowned. It was...right, but not at the same time. It wasn't his mother's voice, but he knew it. "Rickon, I'm not Mother. It's your sister, Sansa." 

Sansa. Rickon mouthed the word, unable to make his tongue work, feeling heavy in his mouth. Sansa was his sister. That sounded right. Rickon remembered being carried through Winterfell by a girl with red hair and blue eyes like Mother. They all had red hair and blue eyes, except for the other sister, but none of them had looked like Mother, except for her. None were quite as beautiful as Mother, everyone said so. But it confused Rickon, for Sansa was in his mind and she was a girl. She was close to his age, never aging, remaining forever a girl. It was easy to imagine. She had liked to sing songs and dance and dream of knights. Rickon had liked to pretend he was a knight on a quest, and he liked to hear songs, especially the dangerous ones. He hadn't liked dancing, but he had liked running with Shaggydog. Sansa had been a girl like him, but now she looked like she was a woman, like mother.

"You're Sansa. My sister," Rickon repeated softly, and he watched her let out a soft breath, her hand flying to where Rickon's fingers grasped tightly at the furs pulled over his waist. He remembered when Bran had been trapped in a bed for moons, furs drawn up to his chin. His mother had stayed at his bedside the whole time. Rickon didn't remember much else. She had been so sad. Sansa looked that sad now, her fingers lacing through his own. Rickon tightened the grip, and squeezed at Sansa's fingers. Maybe if he reminded her that he wasn't Bran, that he was awake and okay, maybe she wouldn't look so sad. 

"That's right." Sansa was no longer singing, but her voice sounded musical and soft. Rickon still heard the clanging of steel against steel in his ears, the roar and thunder of shouting and death and horses and _war_. Her voice was much nicer to listen to. "I'm your sister. Rickon, I...I'm _so_ sorry." 

Her voice broke a little, and Rickon sat a little straighter, frowning. Her eyes were downcast, staring at where there hands were joined, but Rickon could see the slight tremble of her shoulders. "What are you sorry for?" Rickon demanded. Why would she be sorry? Sansa was the good sister, he remembered that. The hook-nosed Septa always said so. Sansa was a good lady. She was never sorry because she never did anything wrong. Rickon's other sister disagreed, but _she_ had always been apologizing for something or another.

"I didn't try to save you." Sansa admitted this in a low voice, as if she were confessing some sort of treason, as if she had committed some grave sin. Rickon's frown deepened. 

"You didn't save me," Rickon pointed out plainly. Sansa flinched. "Jon did. Women don't go to _battle_." He scoffed this out. Well, Osha knew how to use a knife. And so had Meera, the odd girl whom Bran seemed so taken with. But they didn't count. They weren't _ladies_. Sansa was a lady. She had even named her direwolf lady. All of their siblings had snickered behind their hands when she did. Rickon had too, but then he stopped. He remembered feeling bad. Everyone had made fun of him when he named Shaggydog. Robb and Theon Greyjoy - whom Rickon hated again, even if he _had_ saved him inadvertently - had tried to convince him to name his direwolf something different, something more befitting a terrifying beast that he would eventually grow to become. 

But Sansa hadn't made fun. She had simply smiled, and pressed a kiss to Rickon's head, and gave Shaggydog a very dignified pat. She had even said it was a good name. Rickon had felt badly for making fun of Sansa. Everyone said her direwolf would grow to be a lady like her, even if Lady was also a ferocious beast like Shaggydog. Sansa was a human lady though, and she didn't fight in battles. She couldn't have saved Rickon.

"I just mean...I thought you would die, Rickon. I had - I planned for you to die." The words came out in a terrible rush, and his sister still wouldn't look at him, not properly. Rickon wished she would. Her eyes were lovely and blue, like their mother's. She was Sansa, his sister, not his mother. She had still carried him around Winterfell and sang sweet songs to him though, and she looked enough like his mother that he wanted to pretend. 

He shrugged his shoulders. The action hurt. He wondered if he had been hurt in the battle. Everything had hurt, but especially his chest. He still felt like he had been trampled by the horses. 

"Oh. Well I thought I would die too. I felt like I was supposed to."

"You didn't die."

The low voice, thick with Northern brogue made Rickon's head snap to the doorway, though Sansa's still remained bent, like she was in the sept Rickon barely remembered, or the godswood he could somewhat recall, posture devout in prayer. Rickon's eyes narrowed against the shadows. _Father_.

No, it wasn't father. Rickon scolded himself for making the same mistake again. Father was dead. Mother was dead. But Jon, his brother, he was alive. Sansa was his sister and she was alive. Jon stepped further into the room, closer to the light, and it was easier to mark the differences that RIckon didn't quite remember. 

"We lived. All of us. Thanks to the knights of the Vale." Sansa flinched at Jon's words. Rickon wondered why. Jon hadn't been harsh, and it hardly seemed like a reprimand. Rickon knew what those sounded like. He had received many in his childhood. He supposed Sansa hadn't, so she might have mistaken Jon for being angry. He was never a terribly happy boy, Rickon remembered that. Not like Robb, easy to make smile or laugh. He _had_ done so, of course. But it wasn't easy, not like with some of his other siblings. 

Jon moved even closer so that he was near the bed, hovering a bit awkwardly by Sansa, who was still refusing to look at either of her brothers, her head now turned to stare into the flames instead. Rickon wondered if she could see anything in their dance. He shivered slightly, pulling the furs up a little bit further. 

"How are you feeling, Rickon?" Jon asked, his brow furrowed with concern as he glanced Rickon over. Rickon wondered how long he had been asleep. He shrugged again, feeling the muscles in his shoulders twinge painfully.

"Fine. What happened? I remember falling."

Finally Sansa's eyes lifted, but instead of meeting Rickon's gaze, he watched her eyes flick to Jon, and they exchanged a look. Rickon's fingers tightened again. _Mother and Father_. 

"Aye, you fell," Jon nodded in confirmation. "A soldier caught you. Maester Wolkan looked you over. He said you were exhausted. You - you went through so much. Your body needed to rest." Jon's voice seemed to become oddly choked, and fresh tears were building in Sansa's eyes. Rickon felt uncomfortable under their attentions, red beginning to creep up the sides of his neck.

"I'm sorry," Rickon muttered, his voice dark and small. "I wasn't very brave. Brave men don't faint during battle."

He hadn't even been afraid, during the end. Rickon remembered that. He had watched Jon attacking Ramsay. He had been _winning_. There had been no more threat, even though Jon had been slowing at the time. It wasn't because Ramsay was stronger, Jon had already won. Fear hadn't been what swallowed Rickon whole. He just didn't know what it _had_ been.

Suddenly Jon's face was much closer, his hand outstretched, grabbing Rickon firmly, but not painfully at the nape of his neck, forcing Rickon to hold his gaze. Jon's eyes were grey again, lighter and not as stormy, though Rickon could still see some anger and desperation there. Rickon wondered if his eyes ever looked any different. Rickon wondered what his brother saw in his own eyes, if Rickon disappointed him as much as he must. Robb must have been the brother Jon wanted back, or Bran. Bran was sweet and brave. He would have been a knight, even without his legs. Everyone had loved Bran. Everyone had loved Robb. Rickon hadn't lived long enough for everyone to love him yet. 

“The Starks are the bravest people I have ever met,” Jon said firmly, his voice heavy with resolve. “ _All_ of them.” His eyes darted towards Sansa for a moment, before flying back to Rickon. “What you did...Rickon, few grown men could have done that. You were brave. You were _so_ brave.” He was suddenly tugging Rickon forward again, but this time it was not to pull him onto a horse, or out of the way of a blade. All of a sudden Rickon’s face was pressed against Jon’s broad chest, his fingers clutching at Jon’s jerkin, fighting back tears, until he felt something wet in his hair, and realized that Jon was crying himself. 

“You’re not supposed to compliment yourself,” Rickon finally muttered, his voice muffled against Jon’s chest. “Sansa told me once.” 

He remembered it. Robb and Greyjoy had been fighting in the yards. He couldn’t remember the weapon, but Greyjoy had won. Rickon bristled to think of it. He had been smug too, making Robb scowl with his bragging, until finally it had been Sansa who put an end to it all, insisting that it was rude and unbecoming of a lord, which Theon would eventually be. 

Rickon heard Jon let out a muffled noise above him. He couldn’t quite place it, but it sounded like something of a cross between disbelief and refusal. 

“I’m not a Stark.”

“You are to me. To _us_.”

Rickon pulled away when he heard Sansa’s voice. Her eyes were focused on Jon, blue and blazing with a ferocity that Rickon _remembered_. Like _Mother_. If that was how she looked in a fight, then perhaps Sansa _did_ belong in battle, lady or not. 

Jon was looking at Sansa in turn, both of them completely oblivious to Rickon, whose gaze darted between the two of them. There was a charged sort of fire to the air, much like the snapping flames that danced in the hearth, bathing the room in orange light and warmth. The way they were looking at one another felt a bit like that, and Rickon found himself wanting to bask in that warmth. He didn’t want the moment to break, but suddenly Sansa averted her gaze, a small blush creeping along her cheeks. Rickon could see the same redness barely hidden by Jon’s beard. 

“Sansa’s right about everything. I remember that,” Rickon informed Jon loftily, desperate to recapture that moment. There was a moment of silence, and suddenly Jon huffed out a laugh, drawing Rickon close once again, this time his other arm reaching out for Sansa, who hesitated, before allowing herself to be tugged into the embrace. Her head was tucked underneath Jon’s chin, her right arm wound around Rickon’s back, her left reaching across him to stroke the curls at the nape of his neck. Rickon felt _safe_ here. He felt _loved_. He couldn’t count the moments the three of them remained that way, locked in a tight embrace, the ghosts of his mother and father hovering above him. 

* * *

Rickon wasn't certain why he was here. His presence had been requested in the solar attached to the lord's chambers, the one he remembered his father occupying. He knew Sansa stayed here now. He had heard her screams one night, and had charged out of his bed, wildly and recklessly, no plan in mind other than to stop the terrible screams. By the time he had arrived though, he had found the door slightly ajar, and through the crack he had seen Jon, crouched beside the bed, his eyes stormy and dark with pain. Sansa hadn't screamed any more that night, but he had heard her scream other nights. No one in the castle talked about it, even though everyone heard her, and so Rickon had followed their lead. He had wondered, privately, why Sansa didn't just stay in a different room if their mother and father's scared her so badly. Rickon remembered that their mother had another chamber, one that was all hers, and much warmer than any other in the castle. Rickon had asked why his sister didn't simply stay there, but she had insisted it was the Lady of Winterfell's chamber. It didn't make much sense to Rickon, since his sister _was_ the Lady of Winterfell, but Sansa had never been terribly sensible to him.

He had suggested to Jon that maybe Sansa ought to move back to the chambers she had as a girl. Rickon took comfort in being in his own chambers, rather than the ugly room Ramsay had kept him in. But Jon's face had darkened as if he were in the midst of battle once more, and his _no_ had been so forceful, Rickon hadn't dared to broach the subject again. It had only been a week since the Battle of the Bastards, as he had heard a few of the servants calling it. Winterfell already felt more like what RIckon remembered, even if he had never seen it in winter. 

Sansa looked nervous. She was trying to hide it, but Rickon could tell. She was very good at hiding things, but Rickon knew she was nervous, because her fingers twitched very slightly, looking for purchase in the fabric of her desk, wrapping around a quill, a scroll, anything she could get her hands on. Rickon did the same thing, though his own movements were much larger and more obvious. Sansa seemed to notice Rickon watching her, for suddenly her fingers stilled, and she shot her little brother an apologetic glance. Rickon thought that strange as well.

More people arrived in the solar, and Rickon thought it even stranger. Rickon wasn't often invited to such meetings, not full of adults. Lady Lyanna sometimes was, but Lady Lyanna was the Head of her House, and also, far more annoying than Rickon ever was. She had probably worn down Sansa and Jon, until they allowed her to attend. Rickon had scowled darkly at Jon, insisting he somehow work the Lady of Bear Island into any future siege plans he made. Surely her presence would bring down the walls of any fortress. Jon had let out a surprised bark of laughter at Rickon's declaration, and he had been so pleased to hear his brother laughing again, he hadn't bothered to tell him that he had been quite serious.

Lady Lyanna was not here, however. It was only his brother and sister - brother and sister, _brother and sister_ , not Mother and Father - and the smuggler. His accent was nearly as thick as Jon’s, but it was different. Flea Bottom, he had told Rickon, his beard twitching in a gruff approximation of a smile. He had a Flea Bottom accent. For some reason, it made Rickon trust him a little more. It wasn’t the same as a Northern accent, but it still felt familiar. 

Maester Wolkan had followed after Jon and Davos the smuggler, shutting the door behind him. Sansa straightened in her chair, folding her hands delicately on the desk, her lady knight and squire standing behind her. She was tense in the way she rarely was when it was just Rickon and Jon, and the boy felt the urge to scowl at everyone and send them away. But he couldn’t. Lord Baelish wasn’t here, and Rickon would have to settle for that. 

“Thank you for coming.” Sansa’s voice was strong, but there was something ever so slightly off about it. Rickon couldn’t even begin to say what that might be, so he doubted anyone else noticed, but he saw the way Jon’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, still standing beside the desk, not opposite his sister, but not directly next to her either. “The last of the Northern lords is due to arrive today, and it is important that we speak before holding court.”

The only sound from the room was the crackle of the fire, which held Rickon’s attention for a spell, before his eyes snapped back to Sansa, to find her focused on him. 

“A raven arrived from the citadel, shortly after the announcement of winter.” Rickon suppressed a shiver. By now everyone knew. The Stark words had come true. Winter had come for them all. “It contained the record of Robb’s will.”

The room seemed to still even more, if such a thing was possible. Jon was a statue, just like the one of their father down in the crypts, which Rickon hated. His eyes were boring into Sansa’s, but her own gaze seemed to flit from person to person. 

“The North has suffered too greatly, for too long. Robb declared the North an independent kingdom, and I expect the Northern lords will wish to honor that. The Starks have returned to Winterfell, after all.” 

Rickon didn’t fully understand what Sansa was saying, but everyone else did. Her words received mixed reactions, with Maester Wolkan wringing his hands, and Davos the smuggler frowning deeply. Jon was still staring at her intently, but Sansa met his gaze with steady blue eyes. 

“In his will, Robb legitimized Jon, and named him his heir.”

Sansa didn’t have a thick Northern accent like their father or like Jon, but she did have an accent. It was soft and subtle, but present enough to easily identify her as Northern. That was how Rickon knew Sansa secretly loved the North, even as a child. Sansa was good at everything, and she was especially good at imitating their Mother. Their Mother was from Riverrun, and she didn’t have a Northern accent at all. Sansa could have gotten rid of hers, if she really wanted. 

When Jon grew upset or emotional, he seemed to use more air, his words becoming breathy and drawn out - huffy even, so long as Rickon was only musing this in his mind, and not in front of Jon. But Sansa, it was as if her voice was scrubbed clean of anything distinctive, anything indicative. It was hardly noticeable, but it seemed to jump out at Rickon, whenever she did it. Like now. Sansa’s voice was completely neutral, displaying nothing, pointing to _something_ being wrong.

Whatever it was, Jon seemed to understand better than Rickon.

“Sansa,” he began, his voice thick with something like sadness.

His sister didn’t give him the chance to continue, for she just held up a hand, cutting him off wordlessly. 

“It was a smart move, and exactly what he should have done. However, the will presupposed the wrongful information that Rickon was dead.” Suddenly all eyes were fixed upon _him_. “We must deal with the question: do we honor the natural line of succession? Or Robb’s will?”

Rickon blinked, trying to process the information - what little he understood.

“You want me to be… _king_?”

Sansa’s eyes were on him again, kind and warm and welcoming. Rickon felt as if nothing could go wrong when Sansa looked at him with Mother’s eyes. “I expect it is what the North will want. You are the trueborn son of Ned Stark.”

“But I’m _eleven_!” Rickon protested. Rickon didn’t _want_ to be king. Kings reminded him of the one who took his family, and then the one who took Father’s head, and the king his brother had been. Being a king hadn’t saved Robb though. Kings meant death.

 _Blood and mud and death and bodies and shit and burning lungs and aching feet and trembling hands_ \- 

“Kings have been named who were younger than you, Rickon.” Sansa’s voice is kind, but firm. Rickon doesn’t like what his sister is saying, but he is glad it is her who says it all the same.

“Begging your pardon m’Lady, but you’re planning to make your younger brother the king then?” Davos the smuggler questioned, as if it weren’t completely _obvious_. His voice contained a healthy amount of skepticism though, and so Rickon glared on principle, even if he agreed with the man. 

“I’m _saying_ that is what the Northern lords will want.” 

“And what do you think?” Jon’s voice is low and intent, and his gaze never strays from Sansa when he speaks. “What do you think about all of this?”

Sansa seemed almost surprised, though surely she had something up her sleeve. _Surely_ she wouldn’t insist on crowning Rickon, she wouldn’t make him a king. He thought of the dungeons of Winterfell, dark and empty and locked, trapping him with no hope of escape. Rickon felt the darkness where Shaggydog had once been, ache inside his chest.

She pursed her lips, and met Rickon’s eyes with an apologetic gaze. “I think that Rickon is not yet fit to rule.” All the air seemed to leave Rickon’s lungs at once, in something much more violent than a simple gasp, full of relief, exhaling the anxiety he had felt underneath his skin. “He’s young, and he’s spent so much time away from Winterfell. Perhaps if the North was stable, and it were spring...perhaps then. But Jon, we are on the brink of at least one more war. The North is in shambles. We need a _leader_ , not a boy king.” Again, Sansa’s eyes flew to Rickon in apology, but he shook his head. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to be king. 

“What are you proposing?” Jon bit out. His voice was tense, like a frayed rope about to snap.

Sansa swallowed. “Robb named you his heir. I suggest the North crowns you king in his stead, until Rickon is of a more appropriate age.” 

Rickon’s fingers twitched at his sides, but he said nothing. Sansa didn’t say what that age was. It could be years off. Maybe it would never come. Rickon felt bad - he didn’t think Jon wanted to be a king any more than he did. But Jon would at least be good at it. He had saved Rickon. He had lead an army. He was a son of Eddard Stark too, even if his mother was different. Jon was the right sort of king, one Rickon wanted to follow. No one would want to follow a King Rickon the Boy.

Jon was shaking his head though. 

“No. It’s not right. Winterfell is not mine. It belongs to you and Rickon. _You_ should be his regent, not me. I won’t steal your birthright.” 

Maester Wolkan and the smuggler seemed to shift uncomfortably, but Rickon kept his gaze firmly on his brother and sister - brother and sister, _brother and sister_ , not Mother and Father. Sansa had rolled her eyes at him. Rickon wondered if she would still be allowed to do that once Jon was named king.

“The North will never accept that. They still associate me with the Lannisters, they remember that I was Lady Bolton.”

“Against your will!” Jon thundered, his voice hoarse and dark with anger. Rickon’s own fingers had clenched into fists. He learned that Ramsay had been married to Sansa, and he hated him even more for it. A Lannister had been married to her too. It wasn’t _fair_. They were ugly, awful people, and Sansa was beautiful and kind and loving. She deserved knights and songs and magic. Those were the songs she had sung. Her songs didn’t say anything about Boltons and bastards.

“Jon, it doesn’t _matter_. They look at me with mistrust, and they will for a while yet. It cannot be helped. But we cannot wait to crown a sovereign until they decide that any association I had with the family that murdered mine own, or the family that stole my home, was entirely unwanted!” Now Sansa’s voice had risen, and so had she, standing, with her fingertips pressed against her desk. “We need a king. Rickon is too young, and Robb named you his heir. Even though Rickon is alive, Robb’s legitimization stands. That puts you ahead in the line of succession. The people _will_ accept you. You took back Winterfell. Jon, the people _need_ you.” 

Jon had begun pacing the length of the solar, not seeming to care that all eyes were focused on him. For all the people in the room, it almost seemed like it was only Jon and Sansa, for no one else dared to speak.

“You would have me do _exactly_ as your lady mother feared, and steal your birthright? Still Rickon’s right?” His words were enough to make Sansa flinch, but before she could speak, Rickon had licked his lips, and summoned what little courage he had, his eyes squeezed shut.

“I don’t want to be king.”

The words were a whisper, but the solar was quiet enough for them to ring out like a shout. Rickon couldn’t open his eyes, he couldn’t bear to see the disappointment, so he kept his eyes closed.

“Please don’t make me king.” 

Rickon heard movement, and all of a sudden Jon was in front of him, his face bent so the two were at eye level, wide hands grasped lightly around Rickon’s arms. 

“Are you certain this is what you want?” Jon asked quietly, and Rickon nodded. His older brother exhaled through his nose. “I would not force you to become king. But neither would I steal what is rightfully yours.” 

He straightened, and looked between Rickon and Sansa, a wry, grim smile on his lips, that didn’t seem like much of a smile at all. “It’s to be decided then? Here in the shadows?” 

Sansa lowered her gaze, and Rickon frowned, recognizing the slight curve of hurt along the downward slope of her lips. He wondered if Jon noticed it too. He wondered if Jon had meant to put it there on purpose.

“Nothing is decided. But the Northern lords will make their voices known, and we _must_ present Robb’s will to them. I wanted you to know of it, and I requested Maester Wolkan’s presence to verify its authenticity.” And it involved Rickon, and some rights he didn’t understand, so he had been here. The lady knight and her squire went with Sansa everywhere, and Jon trusted Davos the smuggler. It was easy to understand why Sansa had assembled the group she had.

Looking properly chastised, Jon nodded. “I see. Apologies, my lady.” 

Sansa nodded, and Rickon wondered if all was truly forgiven or not.

“Jon,” Sansa said softly, and once again it seemed to be just the two of them in the solar, everyone else fading away. “They will want to name you king.”

Jon let out another harsh breath and moved away from Rickon abruptly, closer to Sansa, though separated by the heavy oak desk that had once belonged to their father. 

“I will accept,” Jon said with a slow nod, “But I will name Rickon my heir. And if we survive the upcoming wars,” Rickon’s heart lurched - blood, sweat, mud, shit, vomit, bodies, horses, screams, battle, war - “And Rickon wants Winterfell, I will step aside. I will not hold onto a crown that never should have been mine.” Letting the words sink in, Jon nodded once, and turned on his heel, striding out of the room with Davos the smuggler following close behind.

Rickon closed his eyes, ignoring the soft sigh of his sister, and the shuffle of papers on her desk. When he allowed the darkness to settle over his eyes, it was easier. He could block out the noise, block out the sound of shouts, screams, horses, death, and pretend. With his eyes closed, he could hold fast to Mother and Father not _brother and sister_. Rickon liked having his eyes closed.

A king could hardly rule, if he couldn’t even see. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thoughts? you can also find me on [tumblr](http://joygreys.tumblr.com).


	2. Sansa I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a matter of mere hours, Jon would return to Winterfell, riding at the side of a Targaryen queen. The thought felt wrong in her mind, as if something didn't quite fit. Sansa trusted Jon, and she would follow his lead but that did not mean she was immune to the fear that threatened to choke her every time she thought about what Daenerys Targaryen meant for her family, for the North, for _Westeros_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is dedicated to [@stark](http://stark.tumblr.com)! happy birthday lovely!
> 
> as noted, while this is a season 8 rewrite, there will be some significant departures from season 7 and even the end of season 6, so keep your eyes peeled for those! this chapter takes place before dany's arrival at winterfell, but sansa will be reflecting on events that took place earlier.
> 
> recognizable dialogue is from 6x09 and 6x10, "The Battle of the Bastards" and "The Winds of Winter" respectively.

Her own screams echoing off of the thick stone walls of her chambers was what eventually woke Sansa. 

It took her a moment, as it always did, to gather her bearings. It took another handful of moments for Sansa to allow peace to settle over her tensed body, when she realized not only was she in _Winterfell_ , but it was safe for her. There had been a time when Sansa had woken to remember she was _home_ , only for the odious tendrils of fear to grip Sansa like a vice, as the knowledge that _Winterfell_ was no longer her home to settle under her skin. Now that she was finally free of Ramsay, now that her home had been reclaimed, it was often the fear that she felt first, long before the peaceful relief could truly sink in. 

Sansa kicked the thick furs off her body haphazardly, ignoring the sudden cold that pierced her skin. She was a Stark, and she was built for winter. She had been born in the depths of it, a winter child for the Starks of Winterfell. Her skin was not truly impenetrable, but it felt that way at times. Sansa felt as though she could will it to be true. 

The remnants of her nightmares - of her _life_ \- often left Sansa's skin heated long after the cold of winter made itself known in Sansa's bones. She hated how weak she felt in those moments, the thick sheen of sweat covering her skin, the trembles that wracked her body. Sansa had gone to great lengths to prove herself strong, made of steel. She _hated_ how the night itself could unnerve her so, as if she was made of mere thread, not steel, and all her insidious past need do was pluck at the strings of the careful tapestry Sansa had woven of herself, and she would come completely undone. On nights like these, Sansa did not feel like steel. She felt as though she were a spool of thread, carelessly flung to the ground. 

Reaching for her robe, Sansa tugged the warm furs over her body, and walked toward the window. It was still night, with its inky sky draped over Winterfell like a blanket. Sansa had loved the night sky as a child. Robb had tugged her out of bed once, to climb the ramparts and stare up at the stars. He had pointed out all the constellations he knew, and some that he had certainly invented - lest he take Sansa for enough of a fool to believe that the Scales of Meraxes was truly a collection of stars in the sky. Eddard had been the one to catch them out of bed, and for that, Sansa had been grateful. They had received the scolding they were due, for sneaking out of their rooms and risking worrying their lady mother. But he had quietly told Sansa, as he walked her back to her rooms, that the stars seemed even brighter, the further North she went. 

She hadn't been able to see the stars in King's Landing. But the night she arrived at Castle Black, she would have sworn she never saw anything so bright in the sky, as the millions of pinpricks of light, gleaming down at her from the heavens.

The nights had been growing longer, with the sunlight of the daytime becoming scant, covered with thick, gray clouds. Night was beginning its descent across Westeros, chasing at the ferocious heels of winter. A flurry of ravens had traveled back and forth between the Citadel and Winterfell. A small group of Maesters was being sent North, to study the phenomenon, and to offer assistance to Winterfell. Privately, Sansa very much doubted there would be anything to study, but she would not refuse any Maesters that came. She knew as surely as the people of the North that war was the natural consequence of this marriage of night and ice. Already the first of the Maesters had arrived, though he was not quite a Maester yet himself. Samwell Tarly and his wife, a curious woman who answered to the name of Gilly, had greeted Sansa personally, with the former stammering out that he would have recognized Sansa by her hair. It had taken several more minutes for Sansa to piece together the truth of the matter; Samwell had been a friend to Jon on the Wall. 

She had found herself fighting back a blush - a curious, girlish reaction she had thought well behind her. She hadn't ever imagined Jon would speak of her at the Wall. She hadn't thought Jon had given her any thought in the long stretch of time from when Sansa had rode off to Winterfell certain in her future, to when she had arrived at Castle Black, humbled and erect. " _He said that he had two sisters. One was a beautiful lady with red hair. The other was a beautiful warrior with brown."_ Sam had seemed almost _apologetic_ , though Sansa couldn't claim to understand why. She had thought Sam felt ashamed at revealing the words exchanged between two friends, before she realized he assumed she had perceived it as some sort of slight. She hadn't.

Sansa Stark was a lady. It was a simple fact. It had once been her defining feature. She had been raised as the second-born child of Winterfell, the first daughter. There were responsibilities and expectations attached to such a position, and Sansa had always taken them seriously. She had longed to imitate her mother, the beautiful Southron fish made wolf, who moved through Winterfell with the sort of grace Sansa had always hoped to attain. Sansa had come to realize, over the years, that her mother was far more than a mere lady. In fact, had Septa Mordane been asked to judge Catelyn Stark, Sansa very much doubted her mother would have passed muster. She been spirited and fierce, and Ned had loved her that way. Sansa had once heard the late Lord Umber whisper that the halls of Winterfell seemed livelier for Catelyn's presence, Tully trout or not. Catelyn Stark, for all her verve and fierceness, had been a lady. She had been the example by which Sansa modeled herself, determined even at three, to one day be compared to Catelyn Stark.

There was wetness on Sansa's cheeks from tears that had spilled without her notice.

The tears did not surprise Sansa, though she rarely cried anymore. There had been many times she desperately wanted to, not least when she had unfurled the scroll sealed with a direwolf impressed upon the red wax, containing Jon's own signature, claiming Daenerys Targaryen as his queen. Sansa let the tears freeze within her then, as she did most other times, such as when the gaping wounds of losses she had never tended to threatened to bleed her out without ever breaking the skin. 

On nights like these, Sansa was prone to tears. She didn't mind, in the privacy of her chambers. Sometimes Arya would wake her, shaking her from sleep, and holding her with a tenderness that had not existed between the two sisters as children. Once, Bran had been in her room, silently holding her hand, allowing her to cry without saying a word. Most often though, Rickon would toss open her door with determination, and climb into her bed. Her younger brother had nightmares too, and sometimes it would be Sansa who woke him, climbing into his bed, and curling with him, like two parenthesis, as the two of them traded stories and japes, their hands tucked underneath their heads, both knowing that sleep would evade them for the rest of the night.

Purpled bruises that spoke of sleepless nights became as common to see on the Starks as the direwolf sigils of their family. 

Rickon enjoyed the stories Sansa shared with him, not remembering many from his own childhood, though Sansa would certainly not call him anything but a boy. There had been the Rickon before the first Sack of Winterfell though, and the Rickon after. The Rickon after remembered few of the details from before. He still stumbled and tripped his way around Sansa's name, calling her _mother_ more than once. It pained Sansa, though she had done her very best not to show it. It made her think of her own mother, and how she wished she had learned more while she had the chance. All at once, Sansa was called to be regent, sister, cousin, mother, pawn, player, lady, soldier. It felt like a neverending rotation of roles that Sansa had to play, keeping all of them straight, remembering which she had to be - the woman or the girl? The little dove, or the snarling wolf? The innocent child or the hardened woman? All were equally true. All were equally wrong. She had learned the art from Petyr Baelish, but she felt it driving her mad, fraying at the edges of her mind.

Arya was better suited for such games. Her _mother_ would have excelled. Catelyn Stark had played many roles. Sansa had never known her to fail at one. It was her mother that she desperately channeled as she threw herself into the game, telling each truth, carefully crafted though it was. Sansa counted her mother among one of her many teachers to prepare her for this game, these wars. She was so different from the girl she had been, that most forgot. Turning away from the window, Sansa swallowed painfully. Even _Jon_ had forgotten.

"You almost sound as if you admire her."

The words had been sharp, as if Jon had taken a whetsone to them, polished them up like a blade to slide underneath Sansa's skin, which she wore soft around him. She had not stopped the small gasp that slid past her lips, the hurt she drew in with her inhale. She had told Jon she no longer believed in protection and promises, and _yet_. He made it so easy to forget. He had risen from the dead, he had destroyed the Bolton army, he had saved _t_ _heir brother_. But he was just as capable of inflicting pain as anyone else. _There are heroes in life_ , Sansa had reminded herself sternly. 

Jon's gaze was apologetic, but unwavering. Sansa's jaw had clenched, and she her crafted armor, carved of courtesy and Northern ice, slip over her skin once more. _Porcelain, to ivory, to steel_. 

"I learned a great deal from her." Her voice had been distant, her gaze locked on the horizon. "As I learned pain from _Ramsay_ , as I learned of human motivation from Lord Baelish. I learned from _all_ of them." Sansa had turned to Jon, her eyes hard, not bothering to try and read the emotions in his own, dark eyes. "Call me Lannister, Bolton as the others do. I don't care." A lie, though they no longer made her flinch. Sansa had once been the worst liar Lord Baelish had ever met. She needed to be the very best, if she was to ensure her family's survival. "But I will not let you forget that I learned _here_ first. I learned from Lord Stark. I learned my mother's words. Family. Duty. Honor. I was always good at learning, Jon. I'm alive because of it." 

He hadn't said anything then, allowing Sansa to slip away, her erect back and lifted chin hiding any hurt that she had buried deep within her chest. Jon was her _king_ , and she would defend him until her last breath. He was her family, he and Rickon were all she had left of the childhood that had been ripped away from her one fateful night on the Kingsroad. She would support and defend him, but she would not let anyone, not even Jon, condemn her for what she had done to stay alive, the lessons she had learned at the price of her innocence, her body, her mind. It was easier, after conversations like that, Sansa had mused, to understand the scorn and hatred in Cersei's voice when she spoke of the unfortunate womanhood that had befallen her birth. Had Sansa been born a man, she might have been praised for her ability to think like the enemy, to anticipate their attacks. She was no Cersei Lannister though, whatever others might think of her, and so she had swallowed her resentment, and channeled it into the work that awaited her.

Jon had come to the solar connected to the lord's chamber, later that night. Though it was connected to Sansa's private quarters, she had been insistent upon Jon using the solar as well. It had certainly been large enough for two desks, Sansa had reasoned, and with the steady stream of soldiers and refugees making their way to Winterfell in the midst of the necessary repairs and reconstruction, there was little available space. 

The spaciousness of the solar did little to dispel the awkwardness that was still prone to falling over the pair of them as they worked, particularly when they disagreed. It seemed to exist in an awkward space, both a part of Sansa's privacy and not. Sansa had wondered if Jon felt uncomfortable, broaching that threshold, for he had hesitated each time, before entering the room. 

That night was no different, though Jon had hesitated for longer, before entering and pulling the door shut behind him. Sansa had barely spared him a glance, focused on the ledgers in front of her. She was the Lady of Winterfell, and managing a household was something she _could_ do. Perhaps the only thing Jon trusted her to do, and she would see to it that it was done well. None of this, she voiced aloud. She would not let Jon see how he had slid the blade of his words deftly under a chink in her armor, and split the soft skin that rested underneath steel, ivory, porcelain. 

"We need to trust each other." 

His voice had been soft yet forceful, an echo of the command he had issued not long ago. Sansa had set aside the quill and looked up to meet Jon's imploring gaze. She betrayed nothing with her expression, a lesson she had learned from her Father, from Petyr, from Jon. She let her eyes assess her king, noting the way his chest rose and fell, heaving as if he had been in battle. But he wore a clean jerkin, the heavy furs that shielded against the winter cold - made by Sansa's hand. Any battle he prepared to wage would be against _her_.

"We need to trust each other, and we _don't_ ," Jon elaborated. "I don't - I was killed by my _men_ , Sansa!" The admission had burst forth from Jon's lips like water rushing a dam, slamming against the tiny fissures until eventual the stone was overwhelmed by the force of the current. "You cannot begin - I can't - My men _killed_ me. I was their leader, and they betrayed me. They _murdered_ me, and left me to die in the snow."

The only sound in the room had been the snapping and popping of logs in the hearth, and Sansa had sat, frozen, staring at her brother, her king, letting his words sink in. She had known that he had died - he told her as much. She had learned of the Red Woman and her magic, and she had seen a flash of the scars along Jon's chest, as he had stripped himself of a dirty tunic once before. The difference between _knowing_ and _understanding_ had never been more apparent than in that moment. It had been so easy for Sansa to compartmentalize and forget. It had been a necessary skill, yet another lesson she had learned under her masters of torture. Her father had died, her brother and mother and goodsister had died, all just horrible events that Sansa shoved away into spaces carved in her mind, lest the painful weight of their tragedy break her. 

With Jon, it had been easier to compartmentalize because he was alive. He had been brought back to life by the Red Woman, and he had fought. For Winterfell, for Rickon, for _her_. He had been tired, but he still agreed to fight when Sansa had pleaded. It had been easier to forget that he had died, because he had thrown himself back into the fray. Sansa hadn't wondered until that night, if Jon might not have been seeking out the death that he had escaped the very first time.

What was more, Jon had died the way Robb had. Betrayed by his men, by people he trusted. Sansa had wondered if it was not a Stark trait, for life to end in betrayal. If Rickon had died, shot through by Ramsay Bolton, would his death have been as much her fault as the man who murdered him? It was a terrible thought - one that Sansa could not afford to shy away from, but not one she needed deal with that very moment. Instead, she had kept her unwavering stare on Jon, watching as he ran his hand through his dark curls in agitation, hand coming to draw across his face, pressing the heel of his palm against the scar curved around his eye.

"I _want_ to trust you Sansa," Jon had admitted. "But the last men I trusted stabbed me in the heart. You...you keep your secrets, and you confide in Littlefinger, and sometimes..." _Sometimes you sound like a Lannister_. Sansa's gut had twisted unpleasantly, though she had expected as much. "Help me to understand Sansa. Please, help me trust you."

Sansa's hands had clenched around the edge of her desk, nails biting into the unforgiving wood that her father had favored, her grip tight enough to leave small, half-moon indents. "You say we need to trust each other, but neither of us have truly given the other a reason for that trust, have we?"

Jon had pulled out a chair and slumped into it, leaning forward so that his body was resting against his elbows, perched atop his knees. "No. We haven't."

Her jaw had tightened, and her mask had hardened on her face. Though Jon had seated himself, Sansa had abruptly pushed back her chair and stood, finding it necessary to pace the length of the solar, the only display of emotion she allowed herself. She would have remained seated, a statue of winter, if the conversation had not been so dire as it was. Jon was supposed to trust her. She had to give him something to trust. Sansa could not - would not - lower all of her defenses, but she could grant him this.

"I sound like a Lannister because I learned to _be_ one," Sansa said, her gaze fixed on the fire crackling in the hearth, and not on Jon. "It had nothing to do with my marriage to Tyrion. I was a thirteen year old girl, alone in the Red Keep, surrounded by my family's enemies, though I didn't know they were such. I had never been warned about the dangers of the game, nor the ugliness of the world. I learned, but I wasn't prepared. I didn't understand what was happening, not really. Not until I watched the boy my father had betrothed me to, the boy I thought I loved order my father's head. I watched Ilyn Payne use Ice to cleave Father's head from his body. In a single moment, everything I thought I knew, everything I thought I understood, my own father - it was all ripped away from me." 

It had been as if another person was speaking, Sansa hardly recognizing her own voice as it echoed around the solar. She did not let her eyes travel away from the flames. What would she see in them, if they could show her images? Who would she see? What would the fire tell her?

"Suddenly I was alone and at the mercy of the Lannisters. I was _alone_ , Jon." It was there that Sansa's voice had cracked, but she had not allowed herself pause. Jon needed to trust her. Sansa needed to trust him. It was the only way. "No one had any reason to believe that I would not be treated with the respect and courtesy as is befitting a highborn girl, even a hostage." She swallowed. "I wasn't. Cersei wanted me for Winterfell, but Joffrey would hear nothing of reason. He was the very worst of Robert and Cersei, no matter who his sire was. He was cruel. He did not beat me himself, he had his Kingsguard do it for him." The words had spilled out of Sansa's mouth faster than they could even appear in her mind, the ugly truth of her childhood pouring forth from her lips. "And then Mother and Robb were killed. I believed Rickon and Bran were dead. Arya was gone, and I could only pray she was alive. Lannisters had killed my mother, father, oldest brother, and the sister and nephew I never met. Cersei Lannister ordered the death of my direwolf. _Lannisters_ arranged my wedding to Tyrion. I was a thirteen year old girl, struggling to survive, surrounded by lions, with no one left to save me. The Lannisters killed my family, but they also _outlived_ them. So yes, I learned."

Finally, Sansa had torn her eyes away from the fire, but the look in Jon's had been unreadable. Her voice had softened, though grew heavier under the weight of a fear she barely allowed herself to feel any longer. "You say if I had seen the Night King, thoughts of that war would consume me. I haven't. But I have lived under Cersei Lannister, and it is _that_ war that consumes me. It would consume you too, had you been in my position."

"Sansa." Jon had risen from his chair and moved toward her, though he kept his distance, his movements gentle, as if approaching a wild animal caught in the snare of a hunter. "I will -"

"Do not promise to protect me, Jon!" The familiarity of the words Sansa knew but did not trust cleaved the iron band around her heart, and her carefully managed emotions snapped, and they punctured the tense air surrounding the king and the lady. "I do not want your promise, I want your trust! Trust in me! I am not your faithless men who killed you in the night. I am not the little girl who left for King's Landing with fanciful dreams of becoming a queen! I have every reason never to trust a living soul again, and yet I _trust_ you. I have trusted in you since before I arrived at Castle Black - since the moment Ramsay told me you were alive. It was all that kept me intact, Jon. Trust that I do not want to be queen, or undermine you, or see you harmed! Trust that all I want is to be home, with whatever family I have left. Trust in _me_!" 

The sudden swell of emotion abandoned Sansa nearly as quickly as it came, and her shoulders slumped, her breath became ragged with the devastation of merely breathing, and throughout it all, Jon's eyes remained as dark and furtive as ever. 

"I trust you, Sansa." The words, spoken with a weight that had not been there before, were enough. Sansa's ribcage shuddered with the force of a deep breath, and Jon stepped closer, his arms reaching out gently, his grip featherlight around her arms, as he drew her closer to press a kiss against her forehead. 

Sansa clung to those words now as she crossed the length of the room that had once belonged to her mother and father, and reached for a dress, one simple enough to don without the assistance of a maid. Sansa had taken no handmaidens, though she was the Lady of Winterfell, and acting regent while Jon was gone. There were hardly hands to spare, and Sansa had learned how to manage on her own. The dresses she wore now were practical and armored, a physical embodiment of the unseen chain mail she fitted herself with each day. Sansa had even caught Arya eyeing a dress of hers with a smirk - and that had brought Sansa the same satisfaction as any compliment of her embroidery. 

Nothing had thrilled her quite as much as Jon's clumsy attempt at flattering Sansa's direwolf stitching, but that was a memory she tucked away quietly into the recesses of her mind. 

Sansa's fingers halted over the first dress she thought to pull on, remembering the importance of the day. It was expected that Jon would arrive today, accompanied by the Dragon Queen and her armies. Today was no ordinary day at Winterfell. They would be receiving a foreign queen. Today the North would receive not only their _king_ \- for Jon had been intentionally vague as to whether or not he had been stripped of that title - but a Targaryen queen. It was not a day for ordinary dresses, no matter how practical they might be.

She allowed herself a moment's pause to close her eyes and let her fingers clench into a tight fist, drawing her breath tight and letting it sting in her chest, before finally pushing the air out in a dizzying exhale. With it, she forced herself to expel the frustration and confusion and traitorous whispers of betrayal that sounded like Petyr Baelish's voice in the back of her mind. " _Trust me,_ " Sansa had implored Jon. And he had. " _Trust me,_ " Jon had asked in quiet return. Sansa _did_.

"I cannot do this alone, Sansa," Jon had admitted to her, later that same night in their solar, when the pair had taken seat opposite one another in front of the fire, after they had laid themselves bare before one another, and promised to trust each other, truly, unequivocally. "You're right. I'm not looking to the South. I don't _care_." His words, though callous if phrased differently, if delivered by anyone but _Jon_ , were earnest and pleading. A supplication for Sansa to understand their intent. "The enemy to the North, Wall or no Wall, is the greatest threat this world has ever seen." Sansa remained silent, her tongue heavy in her mouth. She had sworn to trust Jon. She would listen to him, truly listen, and not simply wait for the opportunity to speak without hearing what it was Jon said. She trusted that Jon would let her speak and advise. 

"But," Jon had said with a heavy sigh, his face turning from the flames, to gaze into Sansa's eyes, "You're right about the South. They are an enemy as well. The Night King will make quick work of us all, if we fail to account for the other threats."

Something had loosened within Sansa's chest in that moment, and she had been swept with a profound joy, despite the heaviness between the two of them. Jon had listened and accepted her counsel. He had done so before, and had proven himself to be the very antithesis of Joffrey, but Sansa hadn't expected _this_. Anyone who spoke to Jon Snow could see the urgency in his countenance, the direness he felt. Even the non-believers, of which there were increasingly fewer, could not shake the tendrils of dread that spread across their spines after speaking with the King in the North. Sansa believed Jon, of course, and feared the Others. But this had been Jon's cause - a cause he had _died_ for. His vision had narrowed to the point of seeing only the Night King and the Army of the Dead, and Sansa had feared he might never see what awaited them in the South. 

Jon had leaned back in his chair then, the harsh lines of his body at odds with the relaxed posture he adopted, his eyes attentive as ever as they gazed at Sansa. She wondered what he saw, when he looked at her. She had so much practice with masks and disguises. She wondered if there was any part of Sansa Stark left to see. 

"I need you, Sansa." The words had shook Sansa to the core, the intensity of them, the pride of a king discarded as Jon stared into her eyes, pleading with her. "You have the experience with the South. I can be a politician, I can, but that isn't all the North needs. We _need_ to prepare for winter, for the Dead. I will do that. I cannot also prepare them for war with Cersei. Please, Sansa. I need your help." 

In that moment, all the breath had left Sansa's body. She had felt as though she had been hollowed, as if her dead husband had risen from the darkness she buried him in, and cleaved her with his knife, scraping her from the inside out, as the truth of Jon's unspoken words hit Sansa with the force of a blunt object. In that moment, she could not believe it had taken her so long to realize, to read between the lines of Jon's words, the curve of his slumped shoulders, the weariness of his voice. She heard his plea, and she heard the promise underneath it, fearful and reticent, something that could not be voiced aloud. And so she had swallowed down her own fear and protest, and lunged her hand across the space between them, grasping Jon's larger one in her own. 

"You have me, Jon. I am yours."

Sansa blinked and unclenched her fingers, allowing her hand to reach for a gown of gray brocade instead. It was structured and warm, though the lace Sansa had embroidered along the bodice made it more fanciful and elegant than the practical gowns she had taken to wearing in the North. The material had been a gift from the Reach, a project Sansa only allowed herself to work on when her fingers desperately sought movement to quiet the noise in her head. She wondered, for the briefest moment, how she might be received, before forcing the thought from her mind, and hurriedly pulling off her dressing gown, in order to dress for the day. Winter had settled harshly around Winterfell, and she would don her furs and cloak over her dress - it would hardly be noticeable, yet still fit to receive a queen. 

Making quick work of the dress, Sansa hurried to her mirror, and appraised her hair critically. Deciding to give into the restlessness building underneath her skin, Sansa decided to leave her auburn waves loose around her shoulders, twisting the sides back to meet at the crown of her head. Sansa's fingers hovered over the few jewels and hairpieces she owned - the scant remnants of her mother's collection that had survived the Bolton reign - before pausing momentarily over the small wooden direwolf comb with inlaid pearl that Jon had gifted her unexpectedly, following a trip to Winter Town. His voice had been so gruff as he shoved the trinket into her hands, mistaking her speechlessness for disinterest, and he had mumbled quiet apologies, and a quiet desire to honor her namedays that had since past, that Sansa had given little thought to. He had made as if to take the bauble back, but Sansa's hand had shot out to grasp Jon by the wrist, forcing his eyes on her, as she expressed her sincere gratitude.

It was the comb she reached for now, twining it along her auburn waves, holding the collected strands in place, to keep them from flying into her eyes. It was early yet, the sky still dark and heavy with night, but Sansa would not sleep. It was impossible to slide back into its comfort on nights like this, and her list of tasks was never-ending. It was far better to spend her time around Winterfell, seeing to her duties and preparations. Today there were far more than usual. 

Striding toward the door, Sansa pushed it open, closing it quietly behind her. She was surprised, pleasantly so, to find that she would keep her privacy a little longer, as no one waited outside her door, simply waiting for the Lady of Winterfell to emerge, in order to pounce. Such dutifulness might have been appreciated from Brienne, but since her sworn shield was in the South with Jon, she could regularly expect visits at odd hours from her odd siblings, and far more unwelcome nighttime visitations from Lord Baelish. On the morning - or eve, depending on how one viewed it - of the Dragon Queen's arrival, Sansa would have expected Lord Baelish to use what little time he had left to whisper in her ear, before the King returned. 

Taking advantage of her solitude, Sansa strode down the halls of Winterfell with purpose, her skirts swaying against her ankles as she rounded the corners, listening carefully for the sound of stirring. Most of the castle was still asleep. They had long grown used to their lady's screams, and they knew there was little to be done to assuage the terrors that haunted her bedchamber. They were used to the early and late hours the Lady of Winterfell kept, and had eventually been convinced the whole castle need not rise with her. Sansa wondered if she might have convinced them, even if war and death did not loom quite so large and ominously, robbing them of sleep and peace. 

Undisturbed, Sansa finally arrived at her destination, carefully pushing open the door, and letting her expression soften into a smile, as she took in the sight before her. A candle still burned at Rickon's bedside, a tiny wick settled in a pool of wax, somehow still alight, casting flickering shadows across the young boy's prone figure. Rickon was amusing, when he slept. Sansa remembered that from her erstwhile childhood. He had been so young when she left, only six years old, but he had slept oddly. Arya had been the one to point it out to Sansa, dragging her into their younger brothers' shared quarters when Rickon had been only three years old, giggling behind her hand as she pointed out his splayed and twitching limbs. 

Sansa smiled now, both at the memory, and the sight of her little brother, tangled furiously in his furs, with his limbs stretched across the entire length of the featherbed. He was twitching and kicking, wild even in his sleep. Sansa clenched her fingers into a fist again, resisting the urge to move closer and smooth his hair across his forehead. The only time Sansa had tried such a thing, shortly after the Battle of the Bastards, she had found her wrist suddenly grasped in her brother's vice-like hand, his eyes wild, more wolf than boy. Upon coming to his senses, Rickon had promptly dropped Sansa's hand and burst into tears. It had taken Sansa well over an hour to soothe her brother - suddenly grateful for her experience with Sweetrobin - and then an additional hour later that day, when Jon's eyes had darkened upon seeing the bruises on her wrist, and demanded to know who had dared place their hands on the Lady of Winterfell in her own home. 

Rickon's presence, though welcomed and cherished, had been difficult for all. He was not the boy Sansa remembered saying farewell to when she had departed for King's Landing. None of them were those children anymore, but the differences in her youngest brother, the boy she had held and swung in her arms as a babe, was hard for Sansa to accept. He had been a wild babe, and a wilder boy. He was still far from a man, but his eyes seemed to shift between wolf, boy, and man. Sometimes he would wear a man's gaze. He had been to battle, after all.

Her younger brother was traumatized, Sansa was certain of it. She said nothing to Jon, knowing that it would only burden him further. He wore the guilt heavy on his shoulders for Rickon's involvement in the battle in the first place. He had admitted as much to her one night in front of the fire, his voice low and hard in his abnegation. According to Jon it was _his_ fault Rickon had seen all that he did. He had simply rode towards the Bolton army without a plan, other than to get to Rickon, and the boy had nearly been crushed by the mob of soldiers.

Sansa had held her tongue. She had learned that it was easier to allow Jon his remonstration to a point, before cutting off his guilt at the knees with infallible logic. It did not always work though, and Sansa had come to learn that Jon's sense of guilt and duty was wildly illogical whenever any of the Starks were involved. Sansa had not spoken of her own guilt, her own role. She did not reassure Jon that what he had done was _necessary_ and had _saved_ Rickon. She had known he would not hear it, and so she had sat in silence, simply offering her presence for as much comfort as Jon would dare to accept from her. Since that night, Sansa had avoided bringing up mentions of the battle in relation to Rickon's name.

But she had seen soldiers return from war with glazed looks in their eyes and horrors in their hearts. She had seen grown men a full foot taller than herself, and twice her width, flinch back, the way Sansa had been prone to in the early days of her escape from Winterfell. There was a haunting that stalked battle-worn men. She saw it in Jon's face, in the weary lines that met the scars around his eyes. It was a gaze that rested in Rickon's eyes as well, in the liminal space that existed in Rickon's mind, between man, boy, and soldier.

There was a part of her that wished she had confided in Jon before he left. She did not truly regret her decision, knowing that such a confession would add more weight to Jon's shoulders, already laden with the burdens of the world, and there was little he could have done. But Sansa was concerned. Maester Wolkan, when Sansa could stand to be around the man, had been of little help. There was not overmuch a maester could do for the horrors of the mind. His gaze had been knowing, pitying, when he told her this, and Sansa had shivered, clenching her fingers against her furs in her only act of anger. She feared that the loss of Shaggydog, compounded with the battle had broken something within her little brother. Sansa had never been the same after the death of her direwolf, and her time with Lady had been much shorter than Rickon's with his own wolf - and she had been older too.

Sighing, Sansa silently crossed the room, taking care not to wake Rickon with her movement, and she blew the candle out with a soft puff of air. She paused for a moment more, to watch her brother in his sleep, the closest to peaceful he looked these days, aside from the rare moment of boyish delight that he was given to. Letting a tiny smile play at the corner of her lips, Sansa quietly exited the room, shutting the door softly behind her, and turning to make her way through Winterfell. 

She had only walked a few paces when instinctively her feet began to hurry, nearly tripping over the length of her dress in her desire to move past the door as quickly as she could. The path had once been as familiar to Sansa as the feeling of her mother's fingers in her hair, tugging the horsehair brush through her copper waves each night. It had been as familiar as the tiny crinkle around Lord Stark's eyes, the way he would often smile at Sansa without moving his lips, a gesture Sansa had learned to look for over the years. 

The rooms of her childhood, of nights spent trying to get comfortable with her sister who kicked in her sleep, the room she had practiced her dancing in, with her arms held aloft in the air to the laughter of Robb - until she had dragged her brother to assist her in her practice - it had been turned into her waking nightmare, upon her return to Winterfell. 

She had wondered, that first night, why Ramsay had lead her to her old chambers. She had known his father occupied the lord's chambers, and Lady Wylla took up her mother's. Sansa's heart and fingers had clenched tightly at the realization that the man who drove the knife into the heart of her father's son, now slept peacefully in the chambers that were never meant to be his. Sansa had expected to be placed in her old chambers, for it was simplest. But she had known that Ramsay took up occupancy of Robb's old chambers. She had expected for her wedding night to take place there. She had thought it a kindness, at first, before learning of Ramsay's cruelty - a lesson she learned faster than any other - that her husband would not force her to make a marriage bed of the place her brother once slept. The brother _his_ family had betrayed. It turned out to be a torture in itself, one that followed her even now, as she all but fled the Great Keep.

It had not been enough for Ramsay that Sansa was utterly alone and terrified, married to one of her family's greatest enemies. He had not been content with just her screams, nor the bloodied mess he made of her skin. He had found it necessary, _enjoyable_ even, to make sure that Sansa suffered, even when his hand was not there to administer it.

She had not spoken of her time with Ramsay, not to anyone. Not even Jon. He knew enough. He had read Ramsay's letter, he had met the man. He had seen Sansa, shaken and trembling when she arrived at Castle Black, and he had heard the truth of her words ringing in the silence between them in a war tent, on the eve of the battle to reclaim their home. Sansa knew he had seen some of her scars, but she had not let her husband's crimes against her pass over her lips. She refused him that power. She refused Jon that guilt. She refused herself that reminder. 

It was all well and good to insist Ramsay Bolton had no power over Sansa, that his name would be erased, that his taint would be forgotten from Winterfell. It was harder in practice, when Sansa still could not sleep through the night, nor pass by the door that had once lead to her private space without fleeing. It was harder for Sansa to exorcise Ramsay Bolton from his home, when she feared he had wound himself so firmly around her soul, she would never be truly free of him.

She could forget, sometimes. The nights spent in silence with Jon, sitting at their desks in the shared solar, or following Rickon as he traipsed through the godswood in determination, stalking for prey that was long gone with winter's bitter arrival. She could forget more easily now, as her head grew heavy and ached each day, as more and more fell apart in her hands, and more pieces demanded her attention, her careful consideration. It was easier when she watched her sister train in the yards, wielding a needle of her own with deadly precision - as exact and elegant as Sansa's own needles had ever been. 

It wasn't easy to forget with her brother, who spent his days in the godswood, searching for answers that Sansa doubted anyone could truly give. She loved her brother, she did. She was grateful for his return, joyful at his survival. But she could not deny the way her skin prickled, the way her breathing became harsh and fast when she realized he had _seen_. He had seen _everything_. Sansa did not understand the extent of Bran's powers, and she doubted he did either. Sansa could swear that sometimes, underneath the impersonal cadence of Bran's voice, she could hear the hint of the mischievous brother who had once flown around Winterfell on sure feet. She longed for him to emerge. Instead, he informed her that he had seen her on her wedding night, he had seen all that Ramsay had done to her. And Sansa had known, she had been _certain_ in that same moment, that Bran had seen into her heart as well. He had seen the other dreams that plagued her in her sleep, he had looked too closely, and seen all that she desired, all that she wanted for herself. 

" _You're not a Lannister,_ " Jon had told her. " _I don't think you one of them._ "

Oh, but if he had only known.

Shaking her head, Sansa exited the Great Keep and began making her way across the courtyard, the falling snow clinging to her hair, reminding her of the last time she saw Robb, every time she caught a glimpse of her snow filled hair from the corner of her eye. It caught her by surprise, in moments like these, just how painful the many losses in her life still were. Robb had died years ago, and it had been longer still since Sansa had seen him or her lady mother. She had thought that in time, the pain of those deaths would fade. There had been a serving woman in Sansa's childhood, one who always snuck Sansa extra bites of sweets, and would tell her beautiful stories whenever Sansa begged prettily. The woman had been from the Summer Isles, and would only smile sadly, whenever Sansa asked why she had traveled all the way to dreary Winterfell. Her name had been Alaya, and her skin had been sun-kissed, the way Sansa's hair was kissed by fire, according to the Free Folk. Her voice had been quite beautiful, and she had been a favorite of all the servants, for her unrelenting kindness. One year, sickness had swept through Winterfell. Sansa had been placed in quarantine with her siblings, and when she emerged Alaya had perished, along with three others.

Sansa still thought of the woman now, years after. Her heart twisted with fondness, and she felt sadness at the edge of every memory, but what pain accompanied the reminder of Alaya's death was more of a dull ache. Sometimes it felt like that with her parents or brother. There was always an ache whenever Sansa thought of them, but sometimes, unexpectedly, it was as if she had ingested poison, and had allowed her insides to be set aflame, burning up with sickness and sadness at the very thought of them. 

It was hardest to think of Talisa Maegyr, Robb's wife. The mother of what would be Sansa's niece or nephew. As a child, she had always tried to be close to Robb, desiring the closeness Arya had with Jon, with her trueborn brother. Though Robb loved his siblings, she had very much doubted that desire was reciprocated - he had Theon and Jon, and little want or need of a young girl seeking to be the perfect lady. Sometimes, in the darkness of night, when even Sansa could not stop the traitorous whispers of her mind that drowned out all reasonable thought, she wondered if Robb had loved her more, would he have made a greater attempt to rescue her?

She was quick to banish such thoughts. Sansa was no longer a little girl, and had gained tactical experience. She would never be the military force that Jon was, nor would she have an intimate understanding of the particulars of fighting, such as Arya. But Sansa understood human emotion and decision-making, perhaps better than anyone, and she _understood_ why Robb had not been willing to trade the Kingslayer. He had been a valuable hostage, for more reason than one, and Sansa...she was not as valuable. No, she was only prized by the scions of King’s Landing who had turned their lustful gazes to her, declared her the key to the North; to her family, she had only ever been a liability.

Sansa could understand why Robb had not rescued her. What she couldn't understand, was Talisa Maegyr. 

She tried not to think of her good-sister, when she could help it. She felt guilt over that decision, but not as much guilt as she felt when she _did_ think of the woman Robb had wed in secret, against the wishes of his mother. Sansa felt certain she would have liked the woman; Robb had been a kind man, with a good and noble heart. Any woman that made his head turn would have been kind and striking as well. She would have been Sansa's family, from the moment Robb claimed her as his wife. Ned Stark had allowed his wife to make sure that their children knew her family's words as well as the tides of winter; Family. Duty. Honor. It was the way of the Tully's, a careful balancing act, but a natural succession. 

Where had been Robb's duty and honor, when he made the Volantis woman his family, losing half of his army in the process? 

It had been that decision of Robb's, more than any other, that had forced sleepless nights upon Sansa. He had no reason to believe that Sansa was being harmed in King's Landing. By all accounts, the Lannister prisoners had been treated with honor. Robb had ordered the head of Lord Karstark when he had murdered the Lannister boys. Sansa certainly had not heard reports of Robb having his prisoners beaten when a battle did not go his way, though such instances were rarer than in Joffrey's case. He had no reason to believe that Sansa was anything but safe and content, if not scared and mourning her father, and possibly bickering with Arya as ever. Sansa did not punish her dead brother for his assumption.

And yet... _she_ had been the silly one, as a child. She had been the one mocked for her starry-eyed gaze, her soft sighs over sweet songs and gallant heroes. She had been the one to swing her skirts magnificently as she danced at every feast to occur at Winterfell, longing for the day when a golden prince would sweep her off her feet, and make her fall so deeply in love. And yet it had been Sansa who was forced into two political matches with her family's enemies, while her own brother, a King and commander of an army that was a legitimate threat to both Stannis and Joffrey, had risked _everything_ for love. He had lost it all too.

It was difficult for Sansa to think of the woman she had never met, the woman Robb had loved with such devotion. On better days, she liked to think she would have gotten along with Talisa Maegyr. Had things been different, she might have even envied her goodsister, as a youth. The woman who a king threw away an army for, and crowned his queen - the first Queen in the North in three hundred years. She might have envied Talisa Maegyr's story, her babe, the love she shared with her husband. But Talisa Maegyr and her babe were dead. Their story was a tragedy, and on Sansa's worst days of anger and a gnawing hunger for vengeance, they were a bitterness that rested heavy on her tongue.

Stepping into the kitchens, and out of her thoughts of her dead family, Sansa glanced around. The kitchens were as likely to be awake and active at any given moment, as the Lady of Winterfell who haunted the keep, never appearing to sleep. While Jon had ironically traveled South, to focus his attention on the North, Sansa had been busy at work in Winterfell, even as she planned for war with the South, as she had agreed to do for Jon. Winter, Sansa had learned quickly, was as much a war as the Others and the lions, no matter which direction it came from. And hunger traveled swiftly on winter's heels.

Food had quickly become the thing Sansa thought about the most. She had always been something of a peckish eater, though she enjoyed her luxuries such as lemoncakes, but now food seemed to consume her every waking moment, when she wasn't trying to manage a thousand other threads. Rationing had become something that Sansa was an expert at, and the cooks of Winterfell had been pushed to their abilities, feeding the massive amounts of people who were continuously pouring into Winterfell, seeking shelter and aid, and preparing to fight.

Now they would need to prepare to feed two additional armies, Sansa thought grimly to herself. Littlefinger's spies and her own had confirmed that the Dragon Queen had taken the Reach, which at once lightened the weight Sansa felt pressing down on her shoulder, and sent a shiver down her spine. Her informant had been pale faced and terrified, speaking of a field of fire. Sansa knew little more than that - her personal spy had been in a state of shock, and Littlefinger made sure all the information he received was carefully filtered and tailored to his liking, before passing it along to Sansa - but she played the delicate game of not allowing herself to think on its implications too carefully, while thinking on it enough to prepare for every possible contingency.

The day after learning that Daenerys Targaryen had taken the Reach, Sansa had immediately made orders with the kitchens, in preparation for a worst possible outcome, in which the Dragon Queen arrived with two armies, and no food. Sansa prayed to every god who would listen, the Seven of her mother, the Old Gods of her father, Arya's Many-Faced-God who loomed over them all, the supposed Lord of Light who had brought Jon back to life, and even Theon's terrible Drowned God. Sansa's own faith had been irrevocably shattered, but she still indulged in prayer, for the sake of others. She prayed to all of them that the foreign armies had brought with them food. They were prepared for the event that they had not, but such circumstances would be grim indeed. 

One of the cooks, a girl by the name of Dara glanced up, and immediately dropped into a curtsey, an awkward one, with a wooden spoon clutched in her hand against the fabric of her kirtle, her hair a halo of frizzy curls around her freckled face ruddy from the steam. "Lady Stark!" She greeted quickly, before returning to the stew she was already working on. 

Rations had been reduced to two meals a day, with the limited food supply they had at their disposal. With winter heavy in the air, and the Army of the Dead approaching, even the animals seemed to have take their leave, leaving very little in the way of hunting. If there was no food brought with the arrival of two, new armies, rations would be cut even further - drastically. Hardly the ideal circumstances for facing a supernatural army lead by the Commander of Death itself. Sansa had to wonder what good the new armies would do, if it weakened the men and women they already had, who had already spent weeks hungering and shivering in the winter. 

_I trust Jon_ , Sansa reminded herself, clinging to the reminder, unclenching her fingers that had fisted around her skirt. _I trust Jon with this war, as he trusts me with mine._

"Good morning Dara," Sansa greeted cordially. "I just came to see how matters are faring. Morning will soon be upon us, and the Dragon Queen's army will arrive." The words were light and airy, but the heaviness of their meaning seemed to echo throughout the kitchens. 

Dara pinched her lips together in a grimace, accentuating her stubborn nose. "It's leaner than I would have liked, m'Lady. I fear our men and women will go to bed with their bellies aching." 

Sansa let out a hiss of unhappiness, though Dara's words were not a surprise. Even with the dozens upon dozens of refugees they had sent East by way of White Harbor, those gathered in Winterfell felt the strain on its limited resources. There was precious little Sansa could do that had not already been done. "Let us pray help arrives sooner, rather than later," Sansa said instead. She did not share her doubts of the gods with her people; they may have abandoned her, but the Northerners still put great faith in the Old Gods, now more than ever. Sansa's duty was to balance truth with hope. 

"It certainly won't be good enough for a _queen_ ," Dara sighed, and then immediately blushed. "I - I just mean - King Jon, he - he's not -"

Sansa pursed her lips. "King Jon is a humble man," she offered, and Dara bobbed her head with immediate relief. Whispers had erupted around Winterfell that Jon had bent the knee to Queen Daenerys, none of them confirmed. Sansa felt the careful eyes always trained on her, always wondering what secrets she hid beneath her crown of copper waves. There were times when Sansa wished to scream at those who stared, scream that she knew as little as they did. Jon had been reticent with his letter. He had claimed Daenerys as his queen, but he had still signed it with his official royal titles. Had he bent the knee? Had Jon given Winterfell - given their _home_ \- to a Targaryen queen?

_I trust Jon._

Sansa took a deep breath, and forced a small smile on her lips. "Add some of the Dornish spices," she suggested. "It will be fit enough for a queen." With her eyes sweeping carefully over the rest of the kitchen, Sansa nodded to Dara and the other cooks, and turned to leave. 

In a matter of mere hours, Jon would return to Winterfell, riding at the side of a Targaryen queen. The thought felt wrong in her mind, as if something didn't quite fit. Sansa trusted Jon, and she would follow his lead but that did not mean she was immune to the fear that threatened to choke her every time she thought about what a Targaryen queen meant for her family, for the North, for _Westeros_. Sansa had loved the songs in her childhood, but she had been a diligent student of history as well.

It was a Northern tradition for all children to be educated in the history of the North, long and proud as it was. Girls such as Sansa learned the Houses and sigils and words and bannermen of all of Westeros, but in the North every child was told the stories of the Kings of Winter, ending with The King Who Knelt, and the Targaryen Conquest. Sansa had grown up listening to Old Nan's tales, hiding her face underneath her furs, or in her older brother's chest to hide from wights and ice spiders and all manner of horrors that existed Beyond the Wall. 

Sansa had taken a liking to history, surprising her mother and father. It had been Ned Stark's decision, that Sansa would be instructed in the same history lessons that her brother and father's ward had received. Arya had eventually joined them. Sansa had been a gentle girl, who cared little for matters of war and violence, but she had learned their history. She knew the long and bloodied tradition of the Targaryens. She knew the whispers that swept through the country, long before Daenerys Targaryen had ever returned to Westeros.

Wide-eyed women and grim-faced menfolk had spoken in hushed voices of the Targaryen madness that might accompany the woman to Winterfell. Though Sansa refused to rule anything out, she very much doubted in the so-called madness of the Targaryens. It was certainly possible, given their inclination for marrying each other, but Sansa suspected there was more. _When a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin_ , the saying went. A Targaryen was either mad, or sane. 

The same people called Cersei a mad queen. People who had never met her, never spent a moment of their time around her. Sansa had. Cersei's actions were madness, there seemed no limitations to her capability for cruelty, but she was not mad. She was calculated and cunning, and one of the smartest players in the entire kingdom, and oh how people _loathed_ the fact. Sansa was among them, but she would not call her _mad_. 

Nor would she be so quick to label a Targaryen as mad by virtue of birth alone. It seemed to Sansa, that it was the unadulterated, undisputed power the Targaryens wielded that had so often lead to their so-called madness. For the Seven's sake, an official _doctrine_ had been issued setting the Targaryens apart from the mere commonfolk.

The history of Westeros was stained with Targaryen hubris, and the havoc it had wreaked. Sansa very much doubted that any coin had been flipped when Daenerys Targaryen was born. Sansa pitied the woman, for if the beginnings of her story were to be believed, she had certainly suffered. She had suffered in the way that no little girl ever ought to, yet so many did. 

But a sad beginning did not erase the other stories that had trickled in from the East, the rumors of men crucified by the hundreds, of dragonfire raining down on cities. Sansa believed little, and trusted less, but such tales did not spring up from nothing. Even if all of them proved to be false, there was no denying that a Targaryen woman had arrived to Westeros, with the power to control three dragons - a power no one else had. Sansa was understandably wary, and she could not afford to show it. 

What she heard of the Dragon Queen had done little to set her mind at ease. Littlefinger actively sought to sow the seeds of suspicion within Sansa, but she accepted his whispers with a stony face, using his own lessons against him to betray none of her feelings. In truth, she had been angered since she learned of Daenerys Targaryen's arrival in Westeros, declaring herself the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. The Targaryen Empire had been conquered through blood, ending with Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar Targaryen on the banks of the Trident. Sansa bore little love for the king who had followed the forward motion of King Aerys, unraveling the kingdoms as he descended into drunkenness, but he had won his rebellion. The Targaryens and their loyalists could claim him an usurper as much as they wished, but he had been the rightful king in the eyes of the kingdoms who bent the knee for him.

And the Seven Kingdoms no longer existed. They had ceased to exist the day a bastard with no claim to the throne, executed the Warden of the North for false treason, a lie Eddard Stark had been coerced into saying in the first place. The Iron Throne had shattered all terms of fealty that day, and the North had declared themselves independent. The North had spoken that day, and in the days following the Battle of the Bastards. They would follow no king but the king in the North bearing the name Stark. A Targaryen would receive no love from the North.

Rubbing at the divot between her eyebrows, Sansa once again made her way across the courtyard, heading for the small building beside the Great Keep as the wind began whipping the snow furiously around her face. Sansa tightened her furs around her shoulders to fight back the bitter chill that cut like knives into her skin.

Sansa reached out her hand and gently pushed open the door to the Sept. She had spent very little time here since she and Jon had taken back Winterfell. Few came to this building, for this far North, most men and women worshipped the Old Gods. Catelyn had told Sansa once before, that there had been great unhappiness when Ned instructed a sept be built on Winterfell's grounds. Many had seen it as an insult to Northern ways, to add to the insult of the Lord of Winterfell wedding a Southron bride in a ceremony of the Faith, before ever stepping foot in a godswood. 

She had heard such a complaint before, at her ninth nameday feast. Her cheeks had been flushed with delight at the minstrels her father had brought to the Great Hall, and all of the dancing that had taken place. One man, too far in his cups, had commented that Sansa would be a great beauty like her mother. She had been pleased, in the moment, for it had been everything she ever wished for. Her happiness with the man had soured instantly, as he went on to lament aloud that it was a pity Sansa would likely take after her mother in other ways, favoring the false religion of the Seven. He had been sent away at once, with Lord Stark's mouth pulling down in a fury Sansa did not often see on his face. He had not taken her aside to explain his actions, nor the drunken lord's meaning, but eventually, Sansa had understood. 

Eddard Stark had never followed the Seven, and it was very likely that Catelyn Stark had never spoken to the Old Gods. But the Lord of Winterfell could be seen in his finer clothes, standing in the sept for particular ceremonies and celebrations, such as his children's namedays. Her mother had brought Robb and Sansa to the godswood every day while their father had been gone, fighting the Greyjoy Rebellion. Neither had been comfortable in the other's place of worship, and yet they came.

It wasn't until Sansa was three and ten, alone in King's Landing, without even her septa she had grown up with, that she finally understood what her father had done for her mother. Sansa had hardly prayed, even then. Praying - to the Old Gods and the New - had not saved her father from losing his head. But she had still found solace in the godswood, solace at the stump of a weirwood tree. It had been the closest thing to home she could reach in the Red Keep.

Catelyn's situation had been markedly different from Sansa's, but her husband had still given her a sanctuary, a place for her to worship, or simply retreat. She had grown to be as Northern as the Manderlys or the Hornwoods, or even the Mormonts. Sansa wondered though, if her mother might have struggled more, if Ned Stark had not given her that small piece of home.

Sansa wondered if Arya had been, or Bran. They had both experienced so much, more than Sansa could ever fully comprehend. They had been raised in both faiths too, but Sansa wondered if the world robbed them of any words of prayer as it had done to her. Sansa had brought Rickon, fidgeting all the while, to light candles for their fallen family. She had felt hollow doing so, but she had known it was what her mother would have wanted. Perhaps Rickon too, had been so drained by the world that there was little left for the gods. Sansa would not blame him if it were the case, yet she felt she had a duty to uphold to her younger brother.

She herself only came to the sept when she yearned to feel her mother's presence. It was harder than she had expected, reaching her mother here at Winterfell, though Catelyn had always appeared to be everywhere in Sansa's earlier days. She had been the Lady of Winterfell, and a fine one, even the most begrudging Northman would admit. And yet Sansa found it difficult to summon up the image of her mother walking through the halls, or scolding Bran for climbing while trying to fight back the urge to smile.

It was easier for Sansa to see her father. Lord Stark, though he had never been intended to inherit the North at all, seemed to be Winterfell itself, for much of Sansa's life. His steadiness and aloofness, even when all Sansa craved was a rare smile or embrace, had been a comfort to Sansa. Even when Winterfell had been a prison more than a home, Sansa had easily summoned thoughts of her father and felt more at ease. It had been years and years since Sansa had seen her mother's face, and she had been told she took after Catelyn so often that she feared her own appearance had blurred with her mother's in her mind. Joffrey though, had ensured Sansa would _never_ forget what her father had looked like. 

As a child, Sansa had always assumed she was more like her mother. She looked like her, everyone said so, while Arya had the Stark look about her. And Sansa was a lady, always a lady, just like her lady mother. She did not display Arya' wild spirit, nor did she have as much of an interest in the North as she did the South, which always seemed far less lonely to Sansa. She, and most others, had assumed that Sansa was Catelyn in miniature, while Arya was clearly her father.

Now, Sansa wasn't so sure. She hardly thought the reverse was true - it just wasn't as simple as all that. Catelyn Stark had an indomitable spirit, and a defiance that had lead her to be Robb's most trusted advisor - and not simply because she had raised him. She had earned his trust, and proven herself a worthy and terrifying adversary. Arya's likeness to her mother - if not the physical appearance, her gaze of careful determination - had been staggering for Sansa to see. Sansa liked to think she took after her father in some ways. Perhaps she would never be as honorable as Ned Stark, but she had hope for the world, the way he had, even if her idealism had been tempered by the hopelessness the world had also offered her. It had been Ned Stark, after all, in his soft voice, speaking of the ages of heroes to his wide-eyed daughter, that had made her love the stories and songs. 

Eddard Stark had been haunted too, Sansa realized it now. As a child, he had been distant. Kind, and loving, but never affectionate. There had been clouds in his eyes that had nothing to do with the Stark grey. He had held himself apart at times, and spoke with a graveness that could make his children tremble, even Robb. Ned Stark was the Quiet Wolf, it was said. It was how he was, and Sansa had loved him for it, even if she hadn't really understood him. It took the brutality of the world for her to realize she had never understood at all.

She had seen the look her father so often wore, in Rickon's eyes, in Jon's. Sometimes, she could see it in her own.

Sansa closed her eyes in frustration. Even here, in the sept that her father had never liked, she struggled to reach her mother. And oh, how Sansa needed her mother in this moment, in these hours before preparing to receive a Targaryen queen. Someone she did not _want_ , who could threaten to take everything that Sansa held dear. Her breath had been stolen away when she received Jon's raven, naming Daenerys Targaryen as his queen. She wondered now, if that hadn't been how her own mother had felt when she arrived at Winterfell with Robb, only to find her husband's bastard already settled into the nursery. 

The situations were not the same. Daenerys Targaryen was no bastard, and Sansa Stark was no woman scorned. They did not even know what Jon had said of the North. Sansa still wondered if the pain had been the same. If her mother's heart hadn't clenched in her chest, torn between trusting the man she had been wedded to, and trusting what she saw before her very eyes. The situations were not the same, but Sansa desperately wished to ask her mother how she had been able to stand the hurt, and let love blossom beneath her ribcage, next to the purpled bruise of Jon's very existence. Sansa had lived through more hurts than she had thought imaginable at the age of three and ten, but this...Sansa wanted nothing more than to beg her mother for guidance. Catelyn's neglect and coldness towards Jon had hurt him, and hurt him deeply. Sansa offered no excuse for it. But today, hours away from receiving a Targaryen queen, Sansa thought she might have understood her mother's pain, even a fragment of it. She wondered how Catelyn Stark had endured for so many years, when it already seemed to be eroding Sansa's heart.

It was a hurt she could not admit, borne from a secret locked away tighter than any of the others. A secret she had wound her very soul around, one she would take with her until she herself was buried in the home of whatever husband she would take as her third and final. A secret that none, save for Petyr, had even guessed at.

_Why aren't you happy? What do you want that you do not already have?_

Sansa repressed a shiver, letting her eyes close. She had her home. She had her family. Happiness was fleeting. Winterfell and the Starks were not. Sansa could survive pain. Her mother had done it every day. Her father had as well, never admitting the truth of Jon, looking at his lie, his treason, his _sister_ , and holding himself at a careful distance. Sansa could survive pain, and she would. It was more important that the North survive Daenerys Targaryen. 

With delicate hands, Sansa reached to light a candle, setting it down gently in front of the statue of the Mother. Though wartime such as this might have called for the Warrior, it was not that strength Sansa sought. Finding her mind empty of words to offer up, she sighed softly, watching the flame flicker with the force of her breath. Her candle would have to suffice. Perhaps her mother would know her heart, even in death. Sansa had once believed her mother capable of anything. She believed it still. 

The wind was not quite so furious when Sansa stepped out of the sept, though snow was still falling from the sky. She wondered how the winds affected the Targaryen dragons. She wondered what the cold would do to them. Daenerys Targaryen had spent most of her life in the warm climate of the East. Even the few Southerners who had come to fight for the living had struggled in the Northern winter. Even the knights of the Vale had been unaccustomed to the cold, and the mountain chill could be as cutting and dangerous as that of the North. 

Sansa wondered what they would look like, unfurling their wings against the backdrop of the sky. Arya had loved Old Nan's tales that had featured dragons. Sansa had little interest in the beasts, beyond the romantic tales of dragonriders and their ladies. Now she wondered if she did not hate them. She feared them, certainly. Only a fool wouldn't. And if they played a part in saving everyone from the Night King's doom, she would be grateful to them _and_ their rider. But she feared what they represented.

She had seen the result of Blackwater Bay. She had never seen Harrenhal, but Petyr was its lord, and it put fear into even his voice, though Sansa doubted anyone but her could detect it. The castle was cursed, all of Westeros claimed, but everyone knew after Harren the Black's hubris, the first plague had been dragonfire. Sansa did not want to see Winterfell burn. She did not want to watch the North fall to another Targaryen and her dragons. Nor could she allow her people to fall to the Night King, only for him to raise the scores of the dead to continue his march South. Jon had said the dragons would help, the dragons were necessary to win this war. Sansa trusted Jon. She would not doubt him.

Reaching the stairs of the rampart before the Kingsroad, Sansa began to climb, noticing the ebbing of darkness from the sky, as if the ink was being siphoned back into its glass jar, the twinkling pinpricks of light fading from the sky. True morning would be upon Winterfell soon, and the castle would come to life in its solemn preparations. Despite the number of people who had sought shelter in the castle, there was not the noise and laughter of Sansa's memories. There was only the grim determination, the quiet contemplation of a people on the precipice of a war unlike any other. 

The sun was rising, and night was fading, but it would not last for long. 

The Old gods must be men, Sansa decided as she walked. Though it was true that she rarely prayed to any gods, she was not naive enough to think that they had no presence in this world. Such doubts were untenable, when all Sansa needed to do was to gaze out and see proof of their existence in the face of every man and woman she crossed. Would those hands reach out to strike her? Or would they caress her cheek? Would they pull her close to share a giggle, pass a whisper, steal a kiss? Only something more than human could create such depths of brutality and tenderness wound into the same soul.

The Old gods must be men, for what else could explain the staggering violence of the sunrise, a star cracked open to spill it’s beauty across the ink-colored sky?

The sun had begun to bleed in the sky, and with her thoughts dark and full of violence, Sansa wondered how many might bleed in the snow instead. She was not the naive innocent who had ridden off to King's Landing, but she still had hope, she still had faith. Precious things that stood to be shattered upon this war. Her brother, her sister, _Jon_ , they were all so important to this war. Sansa would not set aside her own contributions but she would be safer by far than her siblings who fought on the battlefield, as she knew they would. Sansa had already lost so much - they all had. She knew it to be very likely that she would only lose more, as the Long Night descended upon them. 

It was the truth she had heard, that night in her solar, hidden in Jon's words, his eyes. He focused only on the war to the North, for he was certain he would not survive it. Perhaps he had no _intention_ of surviving it. Jon had twisted his life around this cause, as Sansa had fashioned her own around Jon, and he felt certain he would not outlive it. The very thought made Sansa's heart race in her chest. The Night King had inspired a fear in Jon like no other. He had assured Sansa that if she had seen him, the same fear would grow like ice in her heart. Sansa had Cersei, but she intended to live through the war to the South. She planned to do everything in her power to stay alive, but she had thought to the _living_ , not merely surviving. That night in her solar, she had wondered if Jon might ever live again, no matter what magic a Red priestess wove. 

The gravity and terror of Sansa's thoughts made her hands tremble. She did not often allow them to consume her like this. There was little point in dwelling on the war to come. Sansa was already offering all that she could, all that she was to the War for the Dawn. In the spaces where Sansa could do nothing, of which there were many, she instead focused her attention South, as she had promised Jon to do. He could not wage two wars at once, but there were two of them. None of them, not Jon, not Arya, not Rickon, not Bran, not even Sansa could truly _live_ as she intended, if they did not survive first the Army of the Dead, and then Cersei's army. 

And that was to say nothing of the Dragon Queen and her armies.

A sudden presence forced Sansa to tear her gaze away from the morning sky. A smile curled along her lips as she acknowledged the direwolf who padded silently toward her. 

"Hello, Ghost." Sansa's words were barely a whisper against the wind, but the direwolf seemed to hear them all the same, moving closer to Sansa. She had been taken aback, upon her arrival at Castle Black, just how sweet it was to see Ghost again as well. She had thought it of Jon many times before arriving at the famed fortress, and she had thought it often since then as well. But she had spared little thought for his direwolf. In fact, Sansa had not often thought of her siblings' direwolves, for it had just been too painful. 

Something had died in her, that night on the Kingsroad, when her father took Lady's head at Cersei's behest. A part of Sansa had been cut off, blackened forever. It was a pain that Rickon experienced as well, and Bran too. Sansa had tried to explain the pain to Jon, once before, but had found her mouth moving with no words coming out. Eventually tears had simply spilled from her eyes, and Jon had drawn her close, holding her against him in a light embrace, with his fingers running gently through her hair. Ghost had been a frequent companion, since that night. He often slept in her bed, another command Sansa was certain Jon had given. 

He was more restless these days, prone to leaving for long stretches of time. Sansa never worried after the direwolf. Unlike Nymeria, who could not step foot in Winterfell without Arya, Ghost came and went as he pleased. Sansa wondered if the restlessness had anything to do with Jon's return. She was certain he knew his master was arriving. Jon shared his body at times, something he had once confessed to Sansa with fear in his eyes, as if she would turn him away in terror or disgust at such an admission. Sansa wondered if she would look the same, if she ever grew cowardly enough to admit the twisted longings of her heart. But she would certainly receive a look of fear and revulsion that she had not given Jon then. Perhaps pity as well, the damnable thing. No, Sansa would not be such a coward. 

She resolved to this, allowing her hand to stroke at Ghost's fur, staring into his eyes and wondering if Jon was in there somewhere. It had been another secret shared between them, a reassurance he gave her upon his departure for Dragonstone. The North would not be completely alone, not even with their king in the South. Sansa could never tell when a warg inhabited another body. Bran could - he had greeted Ghost as Jon once. It had been all Sansa could do not to fling her arms around the direwolf and bury her face in his fur. It was a temptation she struggled not to give into even now, as she contemplated what would soon appear on the horizon, but Sansa remained standing, letting her hand trail through Ghost's fur as she heard another figure approach, this time from beside her.

"There is an unexpected beauty to winter." 

The voice that delivers the words was soft as the falling snow, though there was a hint of exoticness that marks it apart from the North - as if the words themselves did not do so. Sansa did not spare the man a glance, keeping her gaze fixed on the horizon, and her hand curled in Ghost's fur. The direwolf had no reaction to the speaker, though Sansa knew he would make any dislike apparent, the way he often growled when Littlefinger approached. Sansa wondered how many times Jon had been inhabiting his body when he did so. 

"Everything will soon be white. It looks like ash, falling from the sky."

That made Sansa turn, arching a single brow. "You make an interesting comparison. If not a particularly subtle one." A thin smile crossed the man's face.

"Forgive me, my lady. I am not a poet. I simply meant to remark on the beauty of the region and its weather." 

" _Everything before the word but is horseshit"_ , Jon had claimed his father said that often, though Sansa had never heard the adage. She had developed one of her own, in a similar vein; men who used the word "simply", often proceeded with that which was anything but simple. Sansa very much doubted there was anything _simple_ about her companion's words.

"There is beauty, yes," Sansa agreed. "But beauty does not mean safety."

"Indeed. After all, they say Daenerys Targaryen is the most beautiful woman in the world. I wonder if such claimants had seen the Lady of Winterfell." 

Sansa _did_ roll her eyes, certain he would see her doing so. Winter was _here_. War was _here_. In a matter of hours a Targaryen queen and her dragons would be here. She had no time for flattery and empty words. Sansa did not care about being the most beautiful woman in the world. If hacking off her hair, rubbing her alabaster skin rough and raw, and binding her breasts would bring about an end to the wars, Sansa would do so as quickly and unflinchingly as her sister wielded her thin, little blade. Beauty meant nothing in winter. The Night King would hardly fall to a woman's beauty. It would hardly even affect the war to the South. Sansa was no longer struggling to survive in King's Landing, with little more than her claim to Winterfell and her careful study of appearances to save her. Daenerys Targaryen might have been the most beautiful woman in the world. The same had once been claimed of Cersei Lannister. Their beauty had mattered once, but not now. Now one queen had dragons, and the other had King's Landing. 

"I fear I have insulted you, my Lady." The man continued, though there was no trace of remorse in his voice.

"I have weathered worse, I assure you." Sansa's tone was flat, but she turned to look the man straight in the eye. "Why have you come to speak to me?" 

She engaged in games of wordplay and doublespeak often, and had little qualms about doing so. In fact, Sansa sometimes even found she enjoyed it, treating conversations like puzzles, riddles. Her father had made a game of riddles at one point, offering his children sweets for the correct answer. Sansa's cheeks had been flushed with the excitement of it all. She had rarely succeeded as a child, but her siblings had not fared much better. She had learned quickly, and learned to even enjoy the artifice to a certain degree. Symbols and fabrics and colors, they were all a certain language, and one that Sansa spoke well. A private conversation could have layers upon layers of meaning, if one only knew how to listen.

War was here though, and Sansa was rapidly running out of time. She did not have the luxury of enjoying a clever conversation with someone who could provide her nothing. She needed answers, and the envoy was reluctant to give them, accounting for Sansa's rapidly dwindling patience. 

"I have come to thank you for your hospitality, especially during such... _trying_ times. I have added to the burden of your household, and I am grateful for the courtesy you have extended to me." Sansa's eyes were sharp and appraising as she read between the lines of what the man did not say.

"You are leaving. Today." Her words were not a question, and the man nodded. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I hardly imagine you wish to be a part of the retinue to receive Daenerys Targaryen." There was no surprise, but the air was heavy with anticipation. 

The man's mouth twisted into a wry smile. "Your instincts are correct, as I'm certain they almost always are. I believe I have seen all that I needed to see here. I will leave immediately, and make my journey across the Narrow Sea with haste." 

Sansa's eyes remained hardened slivers of Northern ice - the winter elements that he found such _beauty_ in. "And my request?" Had Sansa the time, she would have drawn it out longer, refused to be the one to ask. After all, it was _he_ who was fleeing the Dragon Queen, not Sansa. She was a Stark of Winterfell, the Lady of Winterfell. It was her duty to receive her guests. Even those that came with scales and breathed fire.

"Your request has been approved." 

Sansa gave no outward sign of emotion, though she was certain that if her hand had not still been tangled in Ghost's fur, bracing herself against the direwolf, she might have collapsed with relief. The man seemed disappointed with Sansa's simple nod, but fastened his cloak with a golden broach, two triangles with hands extending from the center. He drew his hood over his head and turned, before pausing, and catching Sansa's gaze once more.

"You have a saying here. The North remembers." Sansa's face was impassive, and she hid the shiver that ran down her spine when Noho Dimittis smiled, as cold and unforgiving as the winter he complimented. "We have a saying too, my Lady. The Iron Bank will have its due." Without further word, the Braavosi man disappeared down the steps of the rampart, leaving Sansa standing alone with Ghost, staring at the horizon, her stomach churning with fearful anticipation.

_I trust Jon_ , she reminded herself as she scanned the skies for signs of dragons. _And Jon trusts me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dropped a couple of hints in this chapter, so i'd love to see if you caught any! comments/kudos are always much appreciated! next chapter we'll get jon's pov as he and daenerys arrive at winterfell!
> 
> you can find me at [tumblr](http://joygreys.tumblr.com).


	3. Jon I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winterfell loomed into view, and the tremulous fear within Jon's heart swelled in tandem with anticipation. He was moments away from home, from his family, from _Sansa_. Everything he had longed for was close within his grasp.
> 
> It was all too close to the queen who rode beside him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all of your kind reviews! i'm blown away by the response, and i hope to reply to all of the reviews by the end of this weekend!
> 
> mila made the [most gorgeous gifset](https://stark.tumblr.com/post/186410165971/the-wolves-will-come-again-asoiaf-random-aus) for this fic, so please give her stunning edit some love!
> 
> Recognizable dialogue is from 8x01 "Winterfell" and 7x03 "The Queen's Justice"

The weight in Jon's belly was familiar and yet wholly different as he approached Winterfell yet again. In his youth, Jon had often felt as though he walked around Winterfell with pebbles inside of him, slowly gathering more with each cold glare from Lady Stark, and every whispered _"bastard"_ . As much as Winterfell had always been his home, he had felt out of place. When he returned after death, after the Wall, after _Sansa_ , the pebbles had turned into boulders when he stared down Ramsay Bolton's army, standing larger and taller in front of the home that belonged to Jon's siblings. 

Now the rocks were no longer smooth and simply heavy, but they were jagged. Jon felt the weight of them always, but one stray turn of his thoughts, a single moment in which he let go of the carefully maintained control over his mind, and he found the sharp, barbed edge of a rock digging into him. His excitement over returning home, returning to his siblings - returning to _her_ \- was all buried underneath the harsh and unforgiving mountain of his fears and worries. 

Beside him, Daenerys rode with her back straight, drawing herself up to her full height. She was a small woman, but like this she might have been as tall as the Titan of Braavos. Her beauty looked strange in the North, and Jon felt the painful clench of his stomach that was becoming all too familiar. She had dressed herself in a winter coat of white rabbit fur and leather strips, arranged in geometrical patterns. Somehow, despite the white of her outfit and the white gold of her hair, Daenerys managed to be striking against the white backdrop of the winter snow. It was not a good thing.

The North would be suspicious of her. Jon didn't need a raven from Sansa to explain as much. She styled herself a Targaryen queen, and had declared herself with little to no support from the people of Westeros. For all those who might have claimed that Robb, and even Jon had done the very same, it had been the Northmen that crowned them. They had been made into kings by the very people whom they would serve. Daenerys had been born on Dragonstone, but she had lived nearly the entirety of her life in Essos. The North had its fill of rulers who knew nothing about their ancient and proud land. The North remembered, but it seemed the rest of the world seemed keen to forget the North, until it became convenient for them. 

The fact that she was a Targaryen would hardly help matters. The North held no love for Robert Baratheon, and the madness the kingdoms had descended into after his death, but they had once fought by his side, after the Targaryen rule threatened the entire line of Starks. Jon's own uncle, his grandfather. There were still those in the North who spoke in hushed tones, of the day the ravens flew North, spreading the horrific fates of Rickard and Brandon Stark for all to hear. The North remembered.

They would certainly remember this day. Jon knew that anyone who lived past the winter that had fallen over Westeros, would carry this day with them until the end of their days. The day Daenerys Targaryen, with her armies and her titles and her _dragons_ arrived at Winterfell. 

He felt the sharp pain in the pit of his stomach again.

Jon had tried to convince Daenerys to wear something different. Once Jon would not have paid attention to what any woman wore, outside of how it marked her apart from himself. To Jon, all highborn ladies dressed in finery, and it was all very fine. Jon had learned though. He had begun an education of a different sort, the moment Sansa handed a cloak to him, made at the Wall, when her fingers had still be numb and nearly frozen with cold. The purple shadows underneath her eyes had betrayed just how hard she had worked, despite the careful lightness of her tone. It had been for that reason that Jon exchanged one fur cloak for another, to honor the intention of Sansa's gift, even if it had been the gesture that meant more to him than the gift itself. 

It hadn't been until they were on Bear Island, after meeting with Lady Lyanna, that one of the gruff Mormont bannermen mentioned to Jon at supper, how he had thought for a moment that Ned Stark had risen from the dead. At the time, Jon's heart had clenched unpleasantly. He _had_ risen from the dead, but he was no Ned Stark. Later, he realized what it was Sansa had done. The cloak was made exactly like their father's, as near as she could remember, she had told Jon. He had been stunned by the clarity of her memory, for the cloak _had_ been identical to Eddard Stark's. And Jon had been told before how much he resembled Ned Stark, more than Robb had, certainly. With a single article of clothing, Sansa had dared the North to forget that children of the Warden of the North still lived, and were calling for the North's loyalty once again.

Now, Jon was ashamed to admit that his respect for Sansa had started to grow in that moment. He had always respected her as his sister, the rightful heir to Winterfell should Ramsay Bolton keep his word and murder Rickon, but that night on Bear Island was the first time Jon had begun to respect Sansa as a political force to be reckoned with. His respect for her in that regard had only grown as they continued their campaigns across the North.

Sansa had taught Jon the unique language of symbols and signs through her clothes, her words, and his own questions. Jon had noted how Sansa wore only three colors - blue, white, and gray. As a child she had delighted in wearing beautiful fabrics in an array of shades and hues. Although her limited palette had been infinitely more practical, Jon had still felt his heart sink at the realization that the girl he had known in Winterfell might have truly died. " _Kill the boy, and become the man,_ " Maester Aemon had told Jon. He wondered if someone had advised Sansa similarly. 

Jon had asked Sansa about her choices, and she had looked surprised that he noticed. "Grey and white are Stark colors," she explained patiently. "And the Tullys wear blue. Other colors remind people of the South, especially now. I do not want to give any more reasons for people to associate me with the Southerners who have hurt the North so fiercely. They have enough cause as it is." Her voice had become sad, and Jon's fingers had instinctively reached to twine in a long strand of red hair that had escaped the thick braid that draped over her shoulder. Sansa's blue eyes had stared at him in surprise, and color had flooded his cheeks, before Jon hastily dropped his hand, and stepped away from his sister.

"Forgive me," he had muttered, and hurried back to his tent to discuss more plans with Davos and Tormund. 

Sansa had made mention of it more than once, implied that people still saw her as a Lannister or a Bolton. At first, Jon had been convinced it was a fear in her own mind. She might not have looked like a Stark, inheriting from her mother's Tully side, but anyone who spoke to Sansa would know it for certain. Sansa was as strong and steady as the Wall - utterly unyielding, and a part of the North itself. But as they met with more and more Northmen, Jon had realized Sansa's concerns were not unfounded. Men and women treated her with suspicion and distrust. More than once Jon had heard the word ' _Lannister_ ', whispered after her, mentions of her husband who had wreaked such havoc in the North.

It had filled Jon with rage to hear it. The men and women who should have risen up to defend and avenge their liege lord's daughter, the sister of their _k_ _ing_ , a princess of the North - all of them staring at her with squinted eyes and sharp tongues. 

Sansa wasn't nearly as affected as Jon, or at least, she pretended not to be. Jon had brought it up in her presence only once, his hands clenched tightly at his sides, staring at Sansa as her fingers flew delicately over a piece of fabric, her gaze shifting between her embroidery, Jon, and their young brother, sleeping fitfully on the furs gathered in front of the hearth in their shared solar. 

"I do not blame them," Sansa had told him quietly. "The North has suffered so much. So much ill has come from the South, and the North remembers. They remember how much I loved the South. I spent so long there. I'm a Stark, but I'm not Robb, or Arya. I'm not _you_. So they distrust me."

Jon's jaw had clenched. " _You_ suffered." His voice was gruff and short, as it always was, even with Sansa. 

She just smiled sadly and shook her head. "I didn't claim they were right. And I don't believe the South is truly evil. But I understand their fears, and I will do my best to assuage them."

And so Sansa had worn white and grey and blue, and draped herself in direwolves, and ever so slowly, the whispers of her former marriages began to peter out, replaced by tales of the beneficence and beauty of the Lady of Winterfell. 

In contrast to Sansa, Daenerys rarely flaunted the Targaryen colors. Jon had seen her in red and black of course, but it seemed to lack the same purpose that he had noticed from even Lady Lyanna, who never let anyone forget she was a Mormont, not through words, actions, or how she presented herself, down to the bronze bear brooch she used to fasten her cloak. Jon supposed Daenerys had less of a need for sartorial reminders, when she actually kept the symbol of her House as companions. 

Her lack of attention to such matters would only harm her here. Winterfell was no King's Landing, but the Northerners were already suspicious of this Dragon Queen. They would not take kindly to a foreign conquerer riding to Winterfell with dragons, proudly flaunting the Stark colors. Even if it was not her intention, whispers would spread like wildfire throughout the North, and with it, discontent. Jon wondered if Tyrion or Varys had advised Daenerys against it. He wondered if they paid attention to such details. Southern opinions of the North and its people were poor, to say the very least. Could they have been so arrogant to believe the people would not notice Daenerys' choice in colors? Or would they believe that the Northerners would not perceive it as a slight? Jon could only pray that Sansa had not also chosen to wear white. She gravitated most often towards gowns and kirtles of dove gray, and dark blues. Jon could not count on something as fickle as luck, however, and so he sent silent prayers to the Old Gods instead.

The retinue drew closer and closer to Winterfell, and as they did, Jon felt his heart hammering painfully in his chest. It had been moons since he had seen Sansa last. Longer still since he had seen Bran and Arya. The knowledge that they were _alive_ and in _Winterfell_ was enough to make Jon's hands tremble around the reins of his steed.

When Jon had traveled to Dragonstone, he had left Ghost behind for several reasons, though he simply claimed the South was no place for a Northern direwolf. The whole North knew the painful fates of Lady and Nymeria, and no one was keen to see another Stark direwolf lost - not when Ghost was all that was left. Sansa had met his eyes, and Jon had given her the tiniest of nods, sharing his other reason with only her.

After Sansa arrived at Castle Black, Ghost had taken to sleeping with her. He followed her every step without Jon's command, though he would have ordered it nonetheless. Alongside those such as Edd and Sam, the Wall had also been home to rapists and murderers. Jon had learned not to trust the men with his life - he certainly would have never trusted them with his _sister_. Ghost had been Sansa's protector, and he had offered her comfort, she later admitted to Jon. When they finally made their way to Winterfell, Ghost continued to follow her as often as he followed Jon, as dutiful a guard as the lady Brienne. 

When he had left for Dragonstone, Jon knew that Ghost would watch over Sansa and Rickon. He would protect them as fiercely as Jon would. Jon hadn't lied to Sansa that night in their solar. He trusted no one. Not Davos, who followed him, even though Jon could not fully understand _why_. Not Brienne, though Jon would remain forever indebted to the woman, for all she had done to bring Sansa to him. Jon had chosen to place his trust in Sansa, and in himself. With the protection of his family, Jon trusted only the Starks, and Ghost was as much a Stark as any of them. As much a Stark as Jon, certainly.

He had another reason for keeping Ghost at Winterfell, one that he had confided in no one, though he had wondered if Sansa suspected. She knew of his ability to see through Ghost's eyes. She had confessed that she once dreamed of Lady, of running through the woods as her wolf. The dreams had stopped after her direwolf's death, but she could still feel the tug at the back of her mind. Rickon had said the same, though his eyes had gone dark and vacant, the way they so often did whenever Shaggydog was mentioned. The loss had been painful for his brother. The Starks were wolves, it had always been said, but no one had ever understood how true a tale it was.

The North was suspicious, not only of foreigners, but even magic that came from its own lands. It was magic that brought the Long Night closer and closer, and beckoned the harsh winds of winter forward. Magic was dangerous and deadly, and those who practiced such arts were no friends of the Old Gods. There were some of those who knew the story of Jon's resurrection that looked at him with cold, suspicious eyes, wondering what sort of darkness festered in his soul. Jon did not have to wonder. He _knew_.

Ghost had shown him Winterfell, even from the prison of Dragonstone. He had physically ached in the wolf's body when he witnessed Bran's return, and later Arya's. He had trembled with rage, letting growls echo through the wolf's ribs when Petyr Baelish approached Sansa - an action he repeated far too often for Jon's liking. He had laid his head down to rest across Rickon's body as the boy moved restlessly during the night. He had witnessed the training taking place in the yards, taking note of mistakes and successes - those who would be fearsome warriors by the time the Night descended. Jon had seen the weariness of Sansa's shoulders as she walked through Winterfell, calculating every moment, the amount of food brought in, against the number of people fleeing to Winterfell in hopes of escaping winter and death itself. He had seen the way Sansa still tossed and turned in the early hours of the morning, still haunted by the demons Jon could not protect her from, no matter what oath he made.

He had seen Sansa -

"I'm relieved to see your countenance was never personal, my Lord."

Daenerys' voice drew Jon sharply from forbidden thoughts with such speed that he physically shook his head, dizzy with disorientation. He blinked several times, clearing the fog from his vision, and finding Daenerys staring at him with her wide, violet eyes, her mouth quirked upward into a smile that was surely intended to be secretive and mysterious. To Jon, it only appeared smug. It took another moment for Jon to realize the meaning of her words, as he let his gaze drift to the Northerners who had gathered along the streets to watch the procession of their king and his foreign queen. Their faces were long and solemn - not unlike Jon's own expressions. 

He simply nodded and made a noncommittal sound, biting down on his tongue. Daenerys hardly had an accurate idea of Northerners, given her experience was limited to Ser Jorah - a slaver who had not been welcomed in the North in since Eddard Stark had exiled him - Jon, and the biased whisperings of Varys and Tyrion. She did not know these people. She had never seen the warmth and tenderness that lined their faces during the harder seasons, the gentleness tucked into even the hardest slant of a stern expression. Northerners were hard people, and callous even. It was not easy to be soft and survive the winter. But there was much joy to be found in the North, so much beauty and happiness. Not as of late, of course, with the beastly dead slumbering towards Winterfell, but Jon knew that was not the reason for the timorous faces he saw peering up at them from the crowd. They feared Daenerys. They feared her dragons who flew overhead. Jon would not blame them even if he could. He feared the very same. Daenerys Targaryen would not be loved in this land, and that, Jon feared as well. 

Jon wondered if Daenerys truly knew the extent to which fear had spread throughout the Seven Kingdoms. With Tyrion and Varys always mumbling in her ear, Jon wondered if she truly understood the way her very name might make the weakest of smallfolk tremble. Children were shrinking back against their parents' legs, and Jon only prayed Daenerys did not see it. She styled herself as the great liberator, the Breaker of Chains. She expected - nay, _demanded_ \- love and fealty. Fear was something she associated with Cersei, with her enemies. Those who feared her were against her. It was a distinction that unnerved Jon to his very core. 

He did not bother to tell Daenerys that his expressions _had_ been personal. His face was long, and lent itself to somber expressions, it was true, but the same had been said of Eddard Stark. Jon had grown up hearing how closely he resembled his lord father, and eventually began to see it as true. There had always been a haunted quality to his father's eyes, and his mouth had rarely pulled up into a smile, but Jon had never wondered at his happiness. It was visible to the whole of the North, any time Lord Stark was around his lady wife, or when he watched his sons sparring in the training yards, or one daughter swirling her skirts in a dance while the other listened with eager ears and wide eyes to the adventurous tales of distant sailors. If Daenerys had thought his sullenness to be personal, it had been, in truth. 

However all of this benefited from Daenerys believing the opposite to be true. 

Still, Jon found himself turning towards Daenerys quietly, his mouth flattened into a stern line. "I warned you. Northerners don't much trust outsiders." He felt compelled to warn her in the hopes that it might temper the worst of her arrogance. She had already been so bold as to ride to Winterfell draped in Stark colors. It would not bode well for her to assume she knew all there was to know of the North, based on the outliers that were Jorah Mormont and Jon Snow. 

She simply raised an eyebrow. "I am with _you_. You are hardly an outsider."

Jon gritted his teeth. "I may be a king now, but I was the bastard of Winterfell for most of my life. I am still an outsider." His voice was gruff, and he tore his gaze away from Daenerys as he saw it soften in pity. She reached a hand out to grasp at Jon's, and he heard the murmurs from the gathered crowd grow in volume. Jon closed his eyes, and wondered how quickly the news would travel to Winterfell. He suspected Sansa would hear of it before they even arrived.

_She trusts me. We trust each other._

Jon had to place his faith in their covenant. Sansa had sworn no oath, but Jon had, in the silence of his own mind. He had sworn to protect her, and to trust her as well. It felt fragile, between them, and choosing to trust Sansa did nothing to dispel the fear that at any moment this delicate structure of half-truths and implications could come crashing down around him, bringing no less than four armies to Winterfell's gate. The fear still threatened to swallow Jon whole, until panic had gripped him around the neck like a noose, and he struggled to draw breath through the iciness that had engulfed his lungs. Trusting Sansa did not pull the fear from his breast by the roots, but it helped ease the tightness in his chest, the dizziness in his mind.

It was a dangerous game Jon played. Heaviness had settled like a collar around his neck, and the bruises that told tales of sleepless nights were more prominent under his eyes. He had wondered, staring up at the ceiling in his Dragonstone cell - though Tyrion had called it his rooms - if this was how Sansa had felt, every day, trapped in the Red Keep, forced to find a delicate, nearly non-existent balance between the many moving players, and her own survival. It granted him no small insight to the nearly indiscernible tremble he had heard every time Sansa made mention of the South, or Cersei Lannister. It was a fear she still carried with her. It was a fear that was now Jon's own.

He had insisted upon traveling to Dragonstone himself, convinced that no one but a king would be able to speak with Daenerys Targaryen as an equal. She would not hear from a simple envoy, and knowing little about her, save for the long, ugly history of Targaryens and Starks, Jon refused to risk another to dragonfire. He had been certain that anyone who wished to rule the Seven Kingdoms would see the Army of the Dead as the most pressing threat. The game of thrones and crowns could be sorted out, once dawn had broken over Westeros.

Jon had been arrogant in his assumptions. The moment Missandei of Naath listed the many styles and titles of Daenerys Targaryen, Jon's heart sank deep in his chest. It echoed in his mind, the way his own voice did, _"Cersei of House Lannister, First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms..."_ The titles and styles of a ruler. Some of the Northern lords had suggested adding more monikers to his own titles - a conversation which quickly descended into the sort of bawdiness that brought a flush to Sansa's cheeks when Tormund began adding his own input - but Jon had refused them all. He was simply the King in the North, a title that felt heavier than any other he imagined he might carry. Even his brother Robb, a man more suited, more _deserving_ of kingship, had simply been King in the North and King of the Trident. Jon could not stop the Northern people from calling him the White Wolf, a title they seemed particularly fond of, for its reminders of the Starks, but he accepted none of the other styles that had been suggested. 

When he stepped into the cavernous throne room at Dragonstone, another fear had been realized, and again, Jon's thoughts traveled across the sea, over the frozen land of the North to his sister, ruling over their home in his stead. He had been insistent that the White Walkers were the most fearsome creatures to cross the earth. He _knew_ the Night King would bring about the destruction of all humanity. Jon had looked into his cold blue eyes, and felt nothing but dread. Staring at the Mother of Dragons, with her fingers wrapped imperiously around the arms of her throne, her violet gaze cold and unforgiving, Jon had felt a similar twinge of fear in his heart.

Jon only prayed that when he gazed into her violet eyes, silently searching for the angry flames of her House, no one suspected he was anything other than another foolish, Northern king, prepared to toss aside a crown for love. At one point in time Jon might have scoffed and proclaimed he would have tossed away the crown he had never demanded for less, but in truth the crown did not belong to him. Not him alone. The crown - the North, _Winterfell_ \- it belonged to the Starks. If Sansa and Rickon were truly so insistent that Jon was a Stark, he would not dishonor what was rightfully theirs. 

He spoke nothing of the dreams he had under the cover of darkness. Dreams in which he had returned to Winterfell a hero, with a beautiful wife to sup with in the Great Hall, and pray with in the godswood. He said nothing of the cold, ugly _envy_ that had gripped his heart the day he learned Robb had been declared King in the North. How he had struggled under the mantle of a man of the Night's Watch, sworn to take no part in the political dealings of the realm, sworn to own no lands, father no children, take no wives. He said nothing of how he had loathed his brother's ability to avenge their father, to rise up and become a _king_. It had been a darkness that festered in Jon's heart, shared with no one. His greatest shame.

It had Jon's greatest shame of his first life. And then the Red Witch had brought him back with her fires, and to Jon's horror, an even greater darkness had made a host of his once deadened heart. 

"You have been quite retiring on this journey, My Lord," Daenerys spoke, forcing Jon's eyes back to hers. She delighted in referring to Jon by a lesser title, the evidence manifested in the corner of her lips, a small smile that she did not bother to hide. No one knew of Jon's proclamation to the Dragon Queen; Daenerys did not know the North. The longer Jon managed to keep the truth in the shadows, the more time he might have bought in the war against the Dead. Davos still let his eyes cut sharply to the side, whenever Daenerys addressed him as such in his presence, but Jon did not flinch.

"The war to come occupies much of my thoughts," Jon offered. "You're the only one who might understand." As he expected, Daenerys' eyes blazed, before softening into a smoldering sort of heat, that burned low and hot, and was altogether dangerous. Jon had spoken truthfully; his days and nights were consumed with thoughts of the Night King, just as he knew Daenerys' were consumed by Cersei and the Iron Throne. She opened her mouth, eyes still burning with a heat that made Jon uncomfortable, and he flexed his burned hand instinctively, before he spoke again. "We are almost at the East Gate, Your Grace. We've nearly arrived."

It was easy to ignore the disappointment that flickered in Daenerys' eyes as she pulled back and straightened on her horse, for Jon barely managed to keep his own mount riding a step behind Daenerys. The company had approached the East Gate, which had already been raised in anticipation of their arrival. The figures gathered in the courtyard began to take shape in Jon's vision, and his eyes immediately picked out the beacon of bright coppery red, the blaze of fire in the midst of winter. Jon's heart seemed to pick up pace at the exact moment his muscles relaxed. 

_He was home._

It did not matter that he had brought a Dragon Queen with dragons. The Dothraki khalasar, the Unsullied soldiers, even the Army of the Dead - for the moment, none of it mattered, because Jon Snow was in Winterfell once more. The Starks had returned home, all that was left of them. 

Jon's eyes swept over the people assembled, and his eyes landed on Bran's immediately. He could not hold in the gasp that welled up in his chest, from some long forgotten place within Jon, and before he realized what he was doing, before he spared a single thought to propriety and appearance - the most dangerous blades he had learned to wield in this terrible game of kings and queens - he was dismounting his steed, and hurrying over to the brother he had lost so many years ago, the day he had fallen from the Broken Tower. 

Tears had gathered in Jon's eyes, but they did not fall. They would have frozen on his cheeks had he dared to let them, but he shed no tears over Brandon Stark, for his brother _lived_. Even if Jon had known it before, even if he had _seen_ Bran through the eyes of Ghost, it was not the same. His brother was sat before him, tall - gods, he would have been taller than even _Robb_ \- and he was alive. Jon had feared, when he left for the Wall, that he would never see Bran alive again. He had known it for certain, when news came of Theon Greyjoy's betrayal. It had been just one more thing Sansa delivered to him at Castle Black, one more fire of hope she managed to kindle within his heart, when she told him of Theon's deception, and that their brothers had survived. 

"Look at you," Jon murmured, his gloved fingers gently cupping his brother's face. "You're a man."

Underneath Jon's trembling hands, Bran swallowed. His eyes were trained on Jon, but they seemed oddly vacant, as if he were both there and somewhere else. Underneath it all, Jon would have sworn he saw a familiar glint from their shared youth, a unique sparkle that often meant nothing good. It nearly brought Jon to his knees with the great weight of _home_. 

"Almost." The word was a whisper, nearly a question as much as it was a reply to Jon. Before he could do anything but frown at his brother in confusion, Jon was distracted by the slightest hint of movement beside his brother, and he raised his eyes.

She wore gray, Jon noted, almost dazedly as he let the image of Sansa soak in. She was as beautiful as ever, dressed in a gown much finer than he had grown accustomed to seeing before leaving for Dragonstone. Her long, fiery hair was in loose waves down her back, with only a small section of it braided - a stark contrast to the Dragon Queen and her winter white braids that were wrapped heavily around the crown of her head. Sansa was a welcome sight, dressed in Stark grey, with direwolves stitched around the hems of the dress, some sort of beading making it sparkle even underneath the thick winter clouds.

A light snowfall had begun, and Jon's eyes followed the trail of several snowflakes as they landed in Sansa's hair, lingering there for a moment, crystalline and gleaming, before melting under the fire that must burn. 

Jon had once asked Old Nan why the Starks had red hair, when so few Northerners did. He hadn't understood what it meant, Lady Stark being their mother, not truly. Old Nan had simply chuckled at his question, and told him that the Old Gods gave some people the sort of fire that could not be contained in the body. It couldn't be hidden. The fire sprung out and devoured their hair. Jon had been so young, and he had wept foolishly, clutching at his bemused siblings, certain that such a thing must have hurt. Lady Stark had chastised him furiously for it, and explained in brusque tones that Tully genes were strong, and _her_ children were Tullys, as well as Starks. It was a memory that brought a dark flush to Jon's cheeks to think on, when he remembered how foolish he had been.

And yet, as he stared at Sansa and the rivers of fire that ran down her back, brighter than any of Lord Stark's other Tully children, he wondered if there hadn't been some truth to Old Nan's tale after all. Sansa burned brighter than anyone he had ever met.

Her eyes were like the Wall itself, cold and beautiful and distant, but Jon indulged himself for a moment, imagining they had softened the slightest degree, when she finally met his gaze. _Trust me_ , he prayed to the Old Gods, to _Sansa_. They had pledged their faith in one another. Jon had to hope Sansa had stayed true. 

Jon moved away from Bran and toward Sansa, wrapping his sister in a hug. He granted himself only a moment, far shorter than he would have liked. Nothing about the embrace was improper. Sansa's body was stiff underneath his, and Jon suddenly yearned for how she had grasped him at Castle Black, what seemed like a lifetime ago, nuzzling into his neck as if safety could be found only with Jon himself. He wished to let his fingers sift through her silky hair; he would risk burning them in the frozen winter air just to feel her hair underneath his skin. But Jon only hugged her, his voice soft and for Sansa alone as he whispered in her ear.

_“I trust you.”_

He stepped away, forcing his gaze to move to the young boy beside her, whose gaze flickered between the two of them as his mouth moved, forming silent words that Jon knew without hearing.

_Brother and sister, not Mother and Father._

Jon's stomach flipped as his heart soared - an altogether unpleasant sensation. Rickon had taken to repeating the phrase to himself often, before Jon had left for Dragonstone. Most of the time he hadn't even realized he was doing it, muttering aloud that Jon and Sansa were simply his brother and sister. They were not Ned and Cat come back to life. There were days when Jon wished it could have been Ned - if any of the Starks had been destined to be dragged from the nothingness of death, why hadn't it been _Ned_? Surely such darkness would have never taken root in the honorable Eddard Stark. However, wishing such a thing did not make it so. Jon could only hope to lead as his father might have - as _Robb_ might have. 

It was not easy to hear Rickon's reminders. It was not any easier to hear the whispers that sped through Winterfell, and feel the long, lingering gazes at his back, especially whenever he sought out his sister for her counsel. 

She looked like Lady Stark, everyone said it. Jon saw the resemblance too, of course, but there was a warmth to her that had never existed in Catelyn Stark, not when she gazed upon her husband's bastard at least. There was an openness and a gentleness to Sansa, even after war and violence and bloodshed. _Catelyn_ , he had heard Sansa called more than once, and he had pretended not to see the violent flinch that wracked her body every time it had happened. She looked like Catelyn Stark, but when Jon stared at her, he saw only Sansa.

_Brother and sister, not Mother and Father._

Jon drew Rickon into his arms suddenly, holding the boy close. He felt his younger brother heave a great sigh against his chest, before Rickon's fingers suddenly fisted in Jon's furs, steadying his trembling body against Jon's. He had large hands, for a boy. Jon had been the same way, growing into his hands, the way Robb had been forced to grow into his height. Rickon's fingers were splayed wide against Jon's back, and he felt them shake, though Rickon tried to hide it. The Wild Wolf of Winterfell buried his face in Jon's chest, and for a moment, everything was peaceful and right. 

"Where's Arya?" Jon asked quietly, looking up from Rickon, who still held him in a tight embrace. 

Sansa's eyes met his, and the warmth Jon had seen earlier had disappeared. Her eyes were not cold, but nor were they welcoming. 

"Lurking somewhere."

There was something important to her words, Jon knew it. But it would not do to dwell on them now, not when Jon had already wasted time and forgotten his courtesies. Sansa had welcomed him as her king, and though her words had been a whisper, Jon had learned how loudly and quickly such whispers carried. Pulling himself from Rickon's embrace with great effort, Jon turned, and gestured at the woman behind him, who strode forward with a smile fastened to her peremptory mask.

"Queen Daenerys of House Targaryen," Jon announced, the words tasting like ash around his tongue. He didn't bother trying to recite the titles that had been blazoned into his mind. Where they rolled gently off of Missandei's tongue, Jon knew they would be halting and clumsy on his own as he choked on the weight of them all. He could not stand before his Stark siblings and declare her their protector, he could not dare to look at the family that had been so tormented by the Iron Throne and its trappings, and call her the Breaker of Chains, when every man, woman and child of the North suspected she would just as soon see their land chained to the same Throne once more. Naming her queen would have to suffice. "My sister, Sansa Stark, the Lady of Winterfell."

Sansa's eyes were cool, betraying nothing as she dipped her head politely, sinking into a slight curtsey. It was not as low as it should have been, not to show respect to a queen. The smile on Daenerys' face was stiff and frozen, but she said nothing, and Jon felt his heart beat frantically against his chest. Sansa's face was a polite mask, and he wondered if Sansa had perfected it in King's Landing, under Cersei Lannister's tutelage. He wondered if she had been forced to wear it in front of another queen.

"Thank you for inviting us into your home, Lady Stark." Daenerys' voice was regal and self assured, carrying throughout the courtyard. Everyone was silent, with all eyes firmly resting on the two women met at the center - one with rivulets of fire running down her back, her eyes as sharp and clear as the water rushing underneath the frozen rivers, and the other with winter white hair gathered in loops of heavy braids, with eyes that burned a painful violet. "The North is as beautiful as your brother claimed, as are you."

Neither Jon nor Sansa reacted outwardly to Daenerys' words, though he felt panic rising from where it had long ago settled underneath his skin. Jon had spoken of the North's beauty, it was true, but he had revealed next to nothing about Sansa. In fact, Lord Tyrion's tongue was far looser when it came to the Lady of Winterfell - far looser than it had any right to be. All Jon had said on the matter, was that Sansa had red hair, and was intelligent. He had rarely spoken of her. To speak of Sansa was to invite the sort of thoughts that Jon had enough time keeping at bay. On Dragonstone, he had been even more careful with such thoughts than he ordinarily was. There had been eyes and ears everywhere, and Sansa had cautioned him against trusting the Spider. After everything Jon had seen, he would not have been surprised to discover that the eunuch had ways of divesting even the secret thoughts that were never spoken aloud.

"Winterfell is yours, Your Grace."

Sansa's voice might as well have been a blade, piercing through Jon and sending him reeling back a handful of years, to the twilight of summer, when the Starks had gathered in the courtyard, and Jon had lingered at the edge of the crowd, and Eddard Stark had bent his knee, and offered Winterfell to his King and friend. Daenerys Targaryen was not Sansa's queen, and Jon very much doubted a chance of friendship could exist between the two women - not when Daenerys wanted the North, and Sansa Stark was the North itself - but the memory was so real and vivid, Jon had to blink away the snowflakes that fell into his eyes, when he realized he was standing at the edge of winter, nearly a lifetime after that day the King had arrived in Winterfell, and sent the Starks careening towards their painful fates. 

Shaking his head to rid his eyes of the snowflakes, Jon's eyes suddenly fell on the unusual guests that had gathered at Sansa's side, and his brow furrowed in confusion, letting his eyes drift over to Sansa, who read Jon's face as easily as if he had been one of Maester Luwin's book of histories. 

"May I present some of our esteemed guests?" Sansa spoke politely, allowing her hand to sweep towards the individuals gathered, who stepped forward as Sansa drew all attention to them. "Princess Arianne has come to us from Dorne. I believe you are familiar with Lady Olenna, Your Grace. And this is her grandson, and heir to Highgarden, Willas Tyrell." 

There was a swooping sensation in Jon's belly as he struggled to understand Sansa's introductions, and what they meant. A quick glance to Daenerys and her advisors confirmed that Jon was hardly the only one confused. Tyrion's mouth was open, gaping at the Tyrells and the Dornishwoman. Daenerys' did a better job of remaining impassive, though her eyebrows had slanted into a frown. Varys appeared unaffected, but Jon had spent enough time on Dragonstone carefully studying the man's movements and expressions. He did not deign to imagine himself better at this wretched game than the Master of all whispers, but Jon could see the tension in his shoulders when he met the eyes of the princess. 

Jon turned his gaze back to the guests of Winterfell, and let his eyes carefully sweep over them. Jon didn't know _why_ he was surprised to see Olenna Tyrell in Winterfell; word had reached Daenerys' camp that the Lannisters had overtaken Highgarden, murdering Garlan Tyrell, but the Queen of Thornes and her heir had disappeared. It had been the very last anyone heard of the remaining Tyrells. Jon supposed he should have known, or at least suspected. He had heard grumbles that whispers from the North froze, the air being too cold to carry even secrets, but Jon opined it had more to do with Sansa - and perhaps even Baelish.

Willas Tyrell wore an affable expression, leaning heavily on his cane, but Jon had heard enough about the man to make him wary. Any man who was held in high regard by Olenna Tyrell was not one to underestimate. Jon's ability to overpower him in the yards would mean nothing if the man turned out to be more like Petyr Baelish than his younger sister, whom Sansa had always spoken of fondly, even when explaining how the Tyrells had sought to use her in King's Landing. The need to speak to Sansa privately grew more and more pressing.

However, it was Arianne Martell that Jon found his eyes drawn to most, and not simply because she was a beautiful woman. She _was_ certainly that; her deep olive skin was still displayed, and she stood tall, as if the cold had no affect on her. Like Daenerys, the princess was short - much shorter than Sansa - but her boldness seemed to give her added height, and she met Jon's searching gaze with a bold stare of her own, from underneath her thick, dark eyelashes. Her plump lips curved into something too sharp to be called a smile, and he felt Daenerys' heated gaze shift over to Jon as well. He fought back the instinct to let a flush creep up his neck and avert his gaze quickly; instead, he continued to meet her eyes with steadiness. It was not Arianne's beauty that interested Jon. Somehow, despite the life he had chosen to live and the cause he had championed, Jon had found himself in the company of several beautiful, even exquisite, women. Melisandre, Sansa, Missandei, Daenerys...the Jon that had been raised in Winterfell might have never believed it. 

Like the other women Jon had known, there was something dangerous to Arianne's beauty. There was calculation behind her dark sibylline eyes, and it made Jon uneasy. Like Willas Tyrell, Jon knew her story, or at least, what had been shared to the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. Arianne Martell had displeased her father, and been locked in a tower for her troubles, while her brother had been sent off to Essos. When Ellaria Sand and the Sand Snakes had taken over Dorne, it was widely speculated that Arianne had been yet another casualty of the coup. And yet she stood in the courtyard of Winterfell, surrounded by ice and snow. What was she doing? Why had Sansa brought a Dornish princess and the Tyrells to Winterfell? 

"I am pleased to see you all alive and well," Daenerys said in lieu of a proper greeting, her voice stiff, eyes sweeping between the three unexpected guests, and the arcane Lady of Winterfell. "Though I must admit, I am surprised to see you here."

"You are not as surprised as we are to be here ourselves, Your Grace," Willas Tyrell was the one to speak, sweeping into a deep bow. Daenerys' eyes narrowed at the lord, but as she opened her mouth to speak, it was Bran who interrupted, drawing all eyes to him. 

"We don't have time for this!" 

Bran's voice was cool and detached, the tone that had set uneasiness roiling in Jon's belly, but a hint of impatience had crept up as well. Jon remembered a day long since ended, when a light summer snow had begun to fall over Winterfell, and Bran had begged and pleaded with Maester Luwin to be released from his lesson, so he might join Arya and Sansa who were playing in the courtyard, enjoying each other's company for once, and setting aside their differences in sight of the snow. Bran had sounded so _similar_ then, despite the urgency of his voice, and Jon's hand trembled. He closed his eyes, allowing the moment of nostalgia and sorrow for all that they had lost sweep over him, before they snapped open, and focused on Bran.

"The Night King has your dragon."

Silence descended over the courtyard again, and the snow seemed to fall heavier than ever, though the winter had nothing to do with the chill that wrapped itself around Jon's bones. Daenerys was pale beside him - her burning amethyst eyes the only color to be found in her visage of white. 

"Bran," Jon began weakly, but found there were no words left to say. It couldn't be true, could it? How could Bran have known? Surely there had to be some mistake, surely Sansa would have _written_ to Jon. His eyes swiftly sought out those Tully blue eyes, and found that Sansa looked unsurprised, if not wearied by Bran's pronouncement. The dragon had fallen beyond the Wall. He had died. Jon had known that the Night King possessed the ability to make the dead rise again, but a _dragon_? 

The fear that festered within Jon, permanent and unyielding grew, devouring everything in Jon with its dark, beastly maw. Until he was more fear than man, until it was as if he was seeing his family from far away, listening to the voices in the courtyard as they began to speak, as if they were across a deep valley. They were all fading away, fading into the nothingness. There was no snow or cold or even fire-kissed tresses. There was only the nothingness that was slowly consuming Jon, until then there was something else.

Jon didn't know how long it took for the darkness of fear to recede within his heart - not conquered, never conquered nor sated, but abandoned for now. No one seemed to have noticed the panic that had nearly forced Jon to his knees with the weight of it. They were still arguing through clenched teeth, discussing, making plans. No one had noticed, save for Rickon, who had wrapped his arms around Jon's waist, and stared up at him quietly, with wide eyes that had known too much for any summer child of eleven years old. 

He took a deep breath, and allowed his trembling, gloved fingers to reach up and card through Rickon's curls, grounding himself through the touch. As he regained control bit by bit, he finally glanced up as a tense quiet descended again, realizing from the splotches of red on Daenerys' otherwise pale cheeks, that her anger was mounting quickly. Sansa's expression was more difficult to decipher, but Jon suspected she was no more pleased than Daenerys.

Tightening her jaw, Sansa adopted the cool mask once again, and appraised Daenerys. 

"Forgive us. Winter has come, but we have not set aside all courtesies. Allow me to escort you to your rooms." 

Daenerys arched a brow, and turned, her body angled towards Jon. "There is no need, Lady Stark. I'm certain you have much to attend to, as the Lady of Winterfell. Jon can show me to my rooms." 

For the briefest moment, it appeared as though Sansa's gaze hardened, something dark and angry flashing across her face, but it was gone so quickly that Jon became convinced he had imagined it. She remained silent, and Jon struggled to speak past the panic that was beginning to rise in his chest again.

"I've not been in Winterfell in moons," he bit out gruffly, not caring enough to monitor his tone, though he knew there would be talk. "Sansa will know better than I." Jon didn't have an idea where Daenerys would be sheltered. He had come to learn quickly that even matters as banal as _rooms_ sent all sorts of messages. With so many... _unique_ guests, Jon couldn't begin to guess where Sansa had decided to put the foreign queen. She had to balance a certain amount of respect for the woman - given how very badly they needed her dragons - while not appearing if the North had been cowed by a foreign monarch - all without knowing whether or not Jon had knelt. He did not envy his sister her position, though he did feel another sharp stab of regret, knowing he had been the one to thrust it upon her.

"Very well," Daenerys conceded. A moment later, Ghost appeared at Sansa's side, and Jon let out a breath of relief he did not realize he had been holding. He was glad to see the direwolf, and gladder still to see how the beast hovered at Sansa's side as her fingers absentmindedly combed through his fur, almost as if she didn't even realize she was doing it.

At precisely that moment, several things happened at once. Daenerys' eyes landed on Ghost, and lit up with the fire that Jon had come to dread seeing in her purple gaze. The very next moment, understanding flashed across Sansa's eyes, and it was _that_ look that made Jon understand as well - a beat too late. Paying no heed to the blood-red stare of the direwolf, and the defensive posture he had adopted, Daenerys reached her hand out to stroke Ghost's head, and the courtyard practically burst into motion.

"Ghost, _no_!" Jon shouted, at the very moment Ser Jorah had moved forward, a frantic "Your Grace!" spilling from his lips. Both were too slow, for Ghost's jaw had snapped furiously at the space where Daenerys' arm had been extended, only a moment ago. His powerful jaws would have cleaved straight through bone, if Sansa had not been faster than them all, and wrenched Daenerys' arm away with a bruising force. A tense silence descended after the explosion, and the fear began to claw its way up Jon's throat again.

Sansa's fingers were still wrapped around Daenerys' wrist, but the queen did not seem to notice, simply staring at the direwolf with shock in her eyes, her lips parted ever so slightly. Jon's breaths were laborious, each one a struggle against the oppressive pressure of the fear. He had spoken to Daenerys of Ghost, only once before. Tyrion, in one of his many attempts to curry good favor between the North and his queen, had made mention of the fact that House Stark and House Targaryen were the only two Houses he knew of, that kept the representations of their sigils as companions. He had chuckled darkly into his goblet about lions and stags wandering around the Red Keep. 

Daenerys had turned her burning heliotrope stare onto Jon then, and he had shifted uncomfortably under her stare. Jon had always been taciturn, and he had said little about his direwolf, though when Daenerys questioned if his relationship with Ghost was not unlike the bond she had with the beasts she called her children. Jon had shrugged his shoulders, and muttered that it was similar. In truth, it was nothing of the sort. The queen commanded her dragons, she rode them. Ghost listened to Jon's word, and followed his commands, but Jon could not claim to own Ghost anymore than he could own the North - King or not. Ghost was a part of the land, a part of _Jon_. What existed between Jon and Ghost was an irrevocable trust; Jon would never give Ghost an order that he was incapable of following. 

But Jon could hardly explain that to Daenerys, who would surely demand to know why Jon could not simply order Ghost not to harm her. 

Sansa was the first to move, quickly flexing her fingers, and letting her arm drop back, her other hand burying deeper in Ghost's fur, though she did not hold him back. Such an action would be merely for show; Sansa was not physically capable of restraining a direwolf - no one was. It was a moot point though, for Ghost knew his bonds, and he would follow Sansa as surely as he followed Jon. Yet another thing Jon could not explain to Daenerys.

"My apologies, Your Grace," Sansa said, casting her eyes downward, and Jon's stomach flipped uncomfortably, hearing his sister apologizing to the Targaryen queen. The position they had all suddenly found themselves in was next to impossible. Sansa had grabbed a queen - one her brother had acknowledged. Her grip had most certainly bruised Daenerys, but it had also saved the woman her arm. Still, Jon could see the fires beginning to blaze, and he pushed aside the fear, acting on instinct and reaching for Daenerys' hand as if possessed by a spirit other than his own, and bringing her hand up gently, as to not further twist at her wrist, and brushing his lips against her deerskin glove.

"Ghost is a creature of the North, my queen," Jon said softly, his voice hardly discernible over the winter winds that had picked up, flinging more snow into his eyes. "Winter has come, and Ghost mistrusts all he does not know."

Daenerys' gaze did not soften, but the flames had dimmed to embers, and Jon felt the slightest tug of relief, though he did not dare to exhale until the queen spoke.

"He will know me soon enough." Her honeyed words, hardly an acquiescence, rang out as much a threat as they were a promise, and Jon swallowed. His gaze reverted back to Sansa, where he saw something hidden and undefinable. Jon might have sworn it looked something like _pain_ , but for all that Sansa claimed it was _Jon_ whose face was as unreadable as their father's had been, Jon had realized it was nearly impossible to discover what Sansa was feeling, unless she put it into words. She had always taken the time to explain it to Jon, but she would not do so in front of the Dragon Queen.

Jon's eyes shifted further, looking past Daenerys to glance at her advisors by her side. As he did so, he noticed the intensity of Tyrion's gaze. With dread curling deep in his chest, shifting underneath the dark and painful knot of fear, he let his eyes follow Tyrion's, and saw that the Hand was staring at Sansa. 

Tyrion had made several comments on Dragonstone, about his marriage to Sansa, never appearing to notice the way Jon's hand would grip tighter around his goblet, his sword - whatever happened to be in his grasp. Or perhaps Tyrion _had_ noticed, and simply did not care. He certainly had not ceased, and Daenerys had always listened with interest. Jon _hated_ it. He loathed the way Tyrion spoke of her, how he referred to her as his wife. Jon was overcome with the urge to grasp the man by the shoulders and shake him, until all inclinations to lay any sort of claim to her fell straight out of his head. It had been only the dark looks from Davos that staid Jon's hand.

She had been a _child_ , Jon had wanted to shout. A girl, kept hostage by the Lannisters, forced into a wedding she did not want. It did not matter that Tyrion had not wanted it either, for he had been in more of a position to say something than Sansa. Whatever grievances he had with his father, there had not been a blade at his neck when he walked into the sept. She had been a child and she had not wanted to wed Tyrion Lannister. She had said no vows before a heart tree, and Lady Stark had raised her children to keep to both gods. As far as Jon was concerned, the marriage was utterly invalid. Since both Sansa and Tyrion swore it had never been consummated, the marriage was invalid in the eyes of all of Westeros as well. And yet Tyrion insisted upon referring to her as his wife.

Turning back to Sansa, Jon realized Tyrion was not the only one staring at his sister, and his teeth clenched, his sword hand flexing around the pommel of Longclaw sheathed at his side. 

He owed Petyr Baelish and the knights of the Vale a life debt, and the knowledge burned like hot coals pressed against his feet. If it had not been for them - if it had not been for _Sansa_ \- the Battle of the Bastards would have been lost. Jon and Rickon both would have been dead, and Sansa might have fallen back into Ramsay Bolton's hands. Jon had thrown all of his careful strategizing to the wind in order to save his brother. He had succeeded, but it nearly cost his army the entire battle. It would have, if not for the knights who stormed against the Bolton army underneath the falcon sigil. 

Jon had a hard time showing any sort of gratitude, however, when he thought of the hungry gaze Petyr Baelish so often fastened onto Sansa.

The man's intentions were clear to anyone with eyes. He burned with lust for Jon's sister, but it was more than that. Lust alone might have made Jon's jaw tighten, but there was something insidious in the depths of Petyr Baelish's eyes, something cruel and twisted, that traversed the length of his body to his very fingertips, which he used to pluck at the strings of Westeros however he pleased. He was a man who did not simply _want_ Sansa. He wanted to own her, to control every piece of her. He was a man who would not be satisfied until he had shattered her and remade her in his image. Petyr Baelish fancied himself the cleverest man in all of Westeros. He had proven more dangerous than most. Sansa knew this as well as Jon, and yet he stood in the courtyard of their home with his beating heart and his eyes free to stare after Sansa, no matter how hard the King glowered. Jon's lip curled back as he watched the mockingbird stare at his sister. It did not matter that Petyr's blood still ran through his veins, and he drew breath into his lungs. Jon knew what it was to be a dead man with a heart that walked. Lord Baelish would know the suffering in time. 

He was not, however, the only one with eyes on Sansa. Jon was startled to realize that there was a third, who had turned to stare at Sansa Stark. Jon knew little of Willas Tyrell outside scraps of gossip and truths, but he knew Willas' gaze as surely as he knew Petyr's and Tyrion's. It was not the same hunger the other two men hid poorly - or did not bother to hide at all, in Baelish's case - but it was fascination. Looking at Willas, one might have thought Sansa Stark was a great new mystery to be discovered. Willas Tyrell's eyes were as sharp as his grandmother's, though considerably kinder, and Jon felt his heart stutter nervously in his chest.

The Tyrells were clever, and the Queen of Thorns was the cleverest of them all - not someone to be underestimated. Sansa had admitted she could not truly count them among her friends, and yet they had not been adversaries. When their interests had aligned, they were powerful allies. Jon wondered if the interests of Willas Tyrell and Sansa Stark had aligned. 

With a flurry of movement, Sansa was beckoning Daenerys and Jon inside the warmth of the keep, out of the snow that had begun to fall with a vengeance. Jon had experienced winter as a child, the winter of Sansa's birth, but this was his first winter as a man. It was the first winter for so many of them, and he watched the nervous glances toward the sky, pregnant with thick storm clouds. A winter storm was brewing in the air. Jon felt it in his bones, a sentiment shared with all of the North, it seemed. Even Ser Jorah shifted his weight from one foot to another, as he moved forward in step with his khaleesi. 

“Please, follow me, Your Grace. I will show you to your rooms. My men can see to your armies, and any food supplies you have brought with you.”

The words, so carefully crafted, made Jon’s head lift the barest amount, and he watched Daenerys’ eyebrow raise. 

“I did not realize the North demanded their guests bring their own food. I brought my armies to your doorstep to fight this war against the dead. As I understood it providing food is incumbent upon you, Lady Stark. Or perhaps I misunderstood guest right?”

At her side, Tyrion stiffened, going so far as to hiss between his teeth. _Good_ , Jon thought, savagely. To stand there, before _Sansa Stark_ the daughter and sister of the Red Wedding, to imply that she, of all the men and women in Westeros, did not have an intimate, tragic understanding of guest right and its importance, was cause enough for the Northmen to draw arms. In fact, Jon was quite certain it was only Sansa's inimitable strength that kept them at bay; she stood unflinching as ever. 

For only a moment, a shiver ran down Jon's spine when he caught sight of the ice in her stare, the cold that rivaled even the strengthening winter winds. It was gone as soon as it appeared, and Sansa ducked her head, letting her blue eyes peek through her lashes, and allowing her cheeks to flood with color. She was somehow making herself smaller, Jon marveled, all without losing control over the situation. His hand clenched tighter around the pommel of his sword at Baelish's smug expression, but Jon could not deny the awe he felt, bearing witness to her work.

"You have not misunderstood, Your Grace. I apologize, you are right of course. In ordinary times, we would never ask our guests provide food and shelter for themselves. But winter has come, and the Starks only recently retook our home. In our absence, I fear the Boltons paid little heed to our family's words, and did not prepare for winter. We have done what we could, however between winter, and housing the many refugees, our supplies are quite low. However, I understood you took Highgarden?" 

Off to the side Olenna and Willas stiffened, the only outward affect Sansa's words had on them. In contrast, Daenerys seemed to pale, her cheeks deepening in color as Sansa spoke. She _had_ taken Highgarden, all of Westeros knew it. But there was no food. She had brought her armies and her dragons, yes, but it would mean nothing if they could not even survive the gnawing hunger and cold, to fight the dead. The silence stretched out, as much an answer as Sansa had sought.

"I see," Sansa said softly, acceptance and condemnation at once. Jon's eyes closed, and his fingers clenched and unclenched. They would starve. Not him, not the Starks, nor Daenerys and her advisors. But the smallfolk. The men and women, the _children_ who had fled to Winterfell to escape the White Walkers, they would fall to starvation and winter cold long before any corpses reached Winterfell. The air would soon be thick and heavy with smoke and the scent of burning flesh. Jon could choke on the mere thought of it, rising with the darkness, reaching out against its stony sleep within Jon, to clench, to grasp, to _strangle_. Another body to be burnt, another body for the Night King to claim as his own, a barren husk that wore the mantle of king with no crown.

Jon heard the movement around him, and he saw the white-gold of Danerys' hair following the fire that trailed down Sansa's back as she lead the queen into Winterfell, but he did not move. Not as the bodies pressed against him - bodies that were animated, but for how long? How long until anyone could admit they were but living dead, with their days marked, their end already upon them? - not as he felt Tyrion's nervous, scrutinizing gaze fastened on him, before something more interesting drew his attention. The King in the North remained, a lifeless statue in the courtyard of Winterfell, as everyone moved around him. He could not move, he could not trust his limbs to respond to his thoughts, scattered and bleak as they were. He could only breathe, and draw the frozen air into his lungs, wishing he could draw strength from it the way Sansa did, when all he felt was caged.

"Jon!"

The familiarity of the voice made Jon tremble to his very core, and it was enough to spur his movement, turning around with his eyes growing wide to see Samwell Tarly, hurrying forward to him as those left in the courtyard returned to whatever activities the grand return of their King had interrupted. 

"Sam!" 

It was warmth Jon felt, tied to the motion of breathing, when his lips allowed the name to slip out, and when his arms wound tightly around his friend. "You're here!" Gods but it had been a lifetime, hadn't it? Jon had _died_ since seeing Sam last, everything had changed. Sam had seen the White Walkers too, he _knew_. Jon had done his duty to convince as many as he could, and he had support. Even Cersei, even Daenerys, they believed him. Sansa had trusted his words, trusted in him, but the relief Jon felt upon seeing Sam was overwhelming and inexplicable. He _knew_. Jon was not alone in Winterfell. Sam had _seen_. 

"You made it to Winterfell." Jon's mouth motioned as if to smile, though he couldn't be certain he remembered it. It felt as though he had not smiled, not truly, in years. The action was a shadow of what had been. A smile was Robb, dimpled and beaming as he lunged and parried in the yards, a sight to behold, a glimpse at the formidable warrior he would become. A smile was Sansa's sweet voice, forming beautiful songs, or gasping in indignation at her sister. It was Bran as he climbed with a brightness in his eyes, as if he had reached the sky itself, and stolen a star, like the Dayne knights he loved, and put it into his gaze instead of a sword. It was Rickon's unrestrained laugh, echoing loudly throughout the walls of their home. A smile was Winterfell, their youth, long before House Stark's words had come to fruition, and the dead had come for them all. A smile was Arya, as sharp and familiar as a blade. 

It had been so long, Jon despaired, since he had truly smiled.

"Have you read all the books in the Citadel then?" His poor attempt at a jape seemed to fall flat, for Sam's eyes had darkened, and his face had grown long and heavy.

"What's wrong?" Panic rose, and Jon once again took up the unending battle of pushing back the ceaseless waves that threatened to pull him under. "Is it Gilly?" Guilt blossomed underneath his ribcage as the name stumbled along his tongue - not the name that had formed in his mind, when he saw the expression Sam wore. Guilt over the wildling girl, and what he had once asked Sam to do. "Is she alright?" 

"She's good." The words were soft, but did nothing to alleviate Jon's concern.

"Little Sam?"

"Don't you know?" Jon's hiss was the only sound above the roar of the wind, not quite so cold as the accusation that clung to Sam's words. Not so cold as the cavern inside of Jon, the hollowed out space where a man had once existed, leaving nothing but pain and fear and purpose wrapped with sinew around the bloody, trembling heart that still beat, against every imaginable odd. 

"Know what?"

 _"You know nothing, Jon Snow."_ The words had haunted him, stalked his steps across the North, and he heard them as clearly as if Ygritte had stood beside him, hissing in his ear. They were as clear as the bells that had not rung in Winterfell since Rickon's birth, eleven years prior, and Jon almost stared around the courtyard, to see if heads had turned his way, in search of the wildling woman's voice, accusing their King of such ignorance. And gods, wouldn't she have scoffed at that. King indeed. How could a man who knew nothing, make anyone bend a knee to him? How indeed?

"Daenerys. She executed my father and brother. They were her prisoners." 

Jon's heart plummeted. Sam had borne little love for his father, he knew, but grief...it didn't work in any way it should have. Jon had offered a silent prayer to the Old Gods over Allister Thorne. His lamentation for Robb had been mixed with the serpentine emotions attached to Catelyn Stark, and all that she had represented in his life. The gods - or cruel absence of anything but humanity in its terribleness, if they truly did not exist - were not so kind as to let even death be as simple as good and evil, honorable and not. The world had been fashioned in hues of gray, and the afterlife was one long dark streak that marked the living. 

"She didn't tell you."

His eyes closed, and he inhaled sharply. Sam was not a player in this terrible game. He was Jon's friend, his ally, his _brother_ , but Jon had placed his trust in Sansa. He did not have so much faith to spare, that he could afford another on his soul. 

"Sam, how did _you_ come to know this?" Jon asked instead of confirming what Sam already had seen to be true. The accusation had traveled from Sam's lips to his eyes, as he fixed Jon with a steely gaze.

"Bran. He saw it."

"The way he saw Viserion fall," Jon murmured, though saying the words aloud in his own voice did not bring about understanding. Somehow Bran had _known_. 

"Yes."

Jon closed his eyes as his throat closed around the ugly truth that clenched its fingers around his windpipe. There was no need for Jon to ask Sam how his brother and father had met their ends. Jon knew. There was only one death that a Targaryen could accept, and it was to perish by the flames. Jon's stomach roiled again, the little bread he had consumed before arriving in Winterfell threatening to rise up. Jon clenched his teeth, swallowing down the bile, if only out of respect for what little food the North had. He had made his decisions. He would live with them; he would die by them.

"I'm so sorry." Supplication, devastation, regret. Jon's voice was heavy with it all, so heavy that he wondered how he had not yet sunk into the earth, below even the layers of stone and thick ice that made up Winterfell. Perhaps it was warm, deeper in the earth. Perhaps it was the only place Jon truly could escape the cold darkness of his own body wrenched back from nothingness. Perhaps he had always been meant to travel a different sort of south. There was no warmth left for the world though, and Jon was left to atone for the numbing cold. "We need to end this war." Apology, resignation. The words twisted something on Sam's face, and Jon turned, beginning to trudge toward the castle, away from Sam, away from his pain, when his friend's voice called him back.

"Would you have done it?" 

Jon stopped, his chest concaving with the force of his breath, trapped in his lungs, the truth caught behind his clenched teeth, and his eyes closed, before opening again.

"I've executed men who disobeyed me." Their deaths, heavy stones pressed against his heart, no matter the justice of it, the _righteousness_ of it. Ned Stark had prepared his sons to take a life. He had extolled the virtues of honor and justice, and impressed the importance of swinging the sword upon each of his sons, and even his bastard. He had insisted that if a man could not look another man in the face, and pass the sentence, swing the sword, perhaps he did not deserve to die.

Ned Stark had not taught his sons to live with the aftermath of the sentence, when justice had been carried out, and the blade had cut out a piece of the executor as well. He had not taught his sons to live with blood and death, no matter how deserving.

"You've also spared men," Sam pointed out, his rotund face growing red with anger, his hands forming tight fists at his side. Jon remembered trying to teach Sam to defend himself, when they had been young and green, and Castle Black had stretched out before them, the permanence of the life they had chosen to live, never imagining it might send them careening toward Winterfell, toward this very day. "Thousands of wildlings who refused to kneel." Jon heard the words Sam did not utter aloud. 

_How was that any different?_

"I wasn't a king," Jon insisted, looking away from Sam's accusatory gaze. "I wasn't in Daenerys' position." He had been named King in the North, though. Would he have made the same decisions while wearing a crown?

"You speak as if we're not standing in _your_ castle, in _your_ kingdom, and yet, you welcomed _her_ as your queen?" Anyone listening could hear the clear disgust in Sam's tone, and the sharp bells of alarm dizzied Jon. It was all he could do not to reach out and wrench Sam away from a threat neither of them could see, much as Sansa had tugged Daenerys' arm away from the jowls of his direwolf. There were ears everywhere in Winterfell. All at once it had become home to Petyr Baelish, Varys, a Dragon Queen, and countless others. Anyone could overhear. Anyone could run straight to Danerys, Varys, Baelish, _Sansa_. Jon would not see the male line of Tarly end with one queen, as he feared would be the fates of _so many_.

"She is my queen, Sam." The words were drawn from Jon, carefully crafted impatience lacing every word, and he saw no less than three bodies stiffen from the corner of his eye. He had confirmed nothing until now, though he knew suspicions had run abound. His letter to Sansa had been deliberately vague, claiming Daenerys as his queen, while signing with the official styles of a king. Jon had wanted to wait, he had never planned on saying the words aloud, not until he had spoken to his sister. But he would not see Sam perish for his grief. "Winterfell was never mine. It has always been Sansa's."

Sam's face shuttered. Jon wondered when it had become impossible to know what his friend was thinking. He had always been an easier face for Jon to read. Had it been death, that stole away Jon's ability to see the truth of Sam's thoughts in his eyes? Or had his own choices vaulted him so far away from the boy he had been in Castle Black, that such a thing was truly lost to him forever. He could feel the fractured pieces of what friendship and camaraderie the two had shared shifting underneath the tension. The edges were so jagged, Jon almost reached his hand out, as if to check his body for wounds.

"You must speak to Bran." Sam's words were empty, and without tone or familiarity. He did not spare Jon another glance as he turned, making his way across the courtyard, to the library tower of Winterfell, leaving Jon behind in the thickly fallen snow.

Jon allowed himself a moment, only a single moment, to gather his thoughts, and control his breathing, before he spun on his heel, his heavy furs dragging behind him, and stalked off toward the godswood, frustration and fear marking his every step through the pure, white snow that had blanketed Winterfell. If there was any chance Jon might find peace, he knew it would be nowhere but the godswood. 

* * *

As he made his way through the treeline, eyes searching for the pale red leaves of the weirwood tree, Jon wondered if it was his father's influence that lead him to seek out the godswood, or if something truly did move through the trees, carried by the wind. Death had been a gaping expanse of nothingness, that Jon both dreaded and longed for. There had been no gods, no heavens, no hells. It had been empty and hollow as the darkness inside of him. Jon had given up on the gods upon his return, for surely any that might have existed, had abandoned him in death. And yet, on Dragonstone, Jon had longed for the godswood, his heart aching for the sacred place of Winterfell, the pale, crying tree that had once haunted him as a child. 

His heart stilled, even now, as he drew closer and closer to the tree, letting his eyes close in his attempt to find peace. The wind howled around Winterfell, but the sound was comforting where others might have cowered. Jon had heard Lady Stark observe once, as a young child, that few in the South ever spoke of the wind, and how it was the true assassin of the winter. People spoke of winter in hushed voices, and dreamed of massive snowfalls, as tall as Winterfell's tallest tower, and terrible ice storms that left bodies cold and blue, wasting away in a land of white. But they did not speak of the wind, how it howled, how it cut like a blade of the sharpest Valyrian steel, through skin and bone, until all that was left of a person was the cold. Jon had heard his father's quiet hum of agreement as he spoke of the Vale, and how the wind had sounded even louder, echoing throughout the mountains, driving those unfortunate enough to be placed in a sky cell, to madness, when all that was left was the shrieks of the wind, and the frozen air. Jon had shivered, and prayed he would never experience the winds the Lord and Lady Stark spoke of.

Now winter had come, and it was there that Jon found his peace.

Slowly, Jon became aware of another presence in the godswood, recognition creeping up on him like a serpent, slowly winding itself around Jon's mind. The godswood was for the Starks, and the Starks alone, though Jon had seen Petyr Baelish follow his sister past the line of trees on more than one occasion, yet the man had a habit of entering places he was not welcomed into. It was not the fury and dread he associated with Baelish, that gripped Jon's heart, but neither was it the easy comfort of Sansa, nor the soft joy of Rickon. No, it was a presence Jon had not felt in many years, and he drew breath with the force of it, his fingers trembling inside his thick gloves, before turning around to face his little sister.

"Arya," He breathed out, drinking in the sight of her. She stood, several feet away from Jon, her face unreadable as her sister's, though the face Jon had imagined so many times in his dreams, when he thought of Winterfell, of _home_. She stood at a ready position, with her feet spread apart, her hands positioned behind her back, chest open and bared, as if daring anyone to strike. There was something deadly about her stance, her expression, _her_ , but when Jon stared at her, he saw only the little girl who had launched herself into his arms, upon receiving the gift of steel.

"I remember you being taller." Her first words to Jon in over half a decade, and Jon choked on the laughter and sadness of it all.

"Aye. You're as small as I remember you ever being."

Something was unlocked in Arya's expression, and in the very next moment she was an explosion of motion, Jon following only a beat later, as the distance between them disappeared, and Jon found his arms full of his younger sister. For the briefest moment, Jon was reminded of another reunion, another sister launching herself into his arms in a far distant keep, but he expelled the thought swiftly and with a vengeance. This was not that. This was Arya Underfoot, his little sister returned to him at long last. Jon closed his eyes, and sank into the embrace, taking comfort in the feeling of Arya underneath his arms. Jon had been certain it was Arya and Robb he would miss the most when he left Winterfell for the Wall. He had been surprised at the intensity in which he had yearned for his other siblings as well, especially once Joffrey Baratheon had taken Ned Stark's head, and the whole world fell to pieces. But Jon had been right in that missing Arya was an open wound unlike any he had ever experienced, when he traveled North to take the black. He had thought he would never see her again, and yet they stood in the godswood of their childhood, embracing tightly, as if the world might end around them at any moment.

 _I'll never let you go again,_ Jon swore to the heart tree alone, silently. Another oath. Another promise he might break, and yet it was all Jon could do. All he had ever known to do was to swear himself, and though he had promised himself to the Night's Watch once, it was to the name of Stark that Jon kept his oaths, even if he himself could never truly be a Stark, no matter what Sansa insisted. 

"I've missed you, Little Sister," Jon murmured into Arya's hair, and he felt her eyelids flutter against his arm where she had buried her face. Dozens of questions were at the tip of his tongue. Where had Arya gone? What had she seen? Jon did not know whether to be grateful or not that Arya had escaped King's Landing where Sansa had been trapped. He had no doubt that Sansa was right - Arya would not have survived the lion's den. He suspected Lord Baelish would have sold her off at the first opportunity, for he had done as much to Sansa, despite having Catelyn's look that he so desperately craved. Jon would be gladdened to hear that Arya had been spared the ordeals her sister endured, but he feared what she might have suffered instead, in those dark years they knew nothing about. And yet, he could not bring himself to break the moment of peace and ask. Instead he drew back, letting his eyes drift to the sword fastened to Arya's hip, and his eyes widened.

"You still have it," The words were barely more than a whisper, awestruck as Jon realized the truth of it. The gift he had given, so many years ago, a lifetime stretched over the rise and fall of the sun, and Arya still had her Needle at her side. 

A touch of pride entered her gaze, and Arya reached down, drawing the blade for Jon to see. "I've used it, once or twice." There was a story behind her words, an adventure. There was pain and sadness too, and Jon would come to know those, but for the moment, he allowed himself to wonder what stories Arya had lived, what adventures she had embarked upon. Sansa had insisted she was the one who was obsessed with stories, and all the more foolish for it, but that wasn't quite right either. All of the Starks had loved stories, especially their father's. It had been Arya though, who leaped and bounded around a room whenever Old Nan or Lord Stark would speak of the wanderers, the warrior queens, the tricksters who slipped in and out of the shadows. Arya had become all but a queen, though Jon was happier for it. The word had ceased to have any meaning, so often had he repeated it in front of Daenerys, or _for_ Daenerys' sake. 

"How did you come back to Winterfell?" Jon asked, finally allowing a question to slip through. No news had been heard of Arya, not when Jon had left for Dragonstone. He knew Sansa had spies throughout Westeros - an accomplishment that Jon admired, though once he might have balked at the notion. None of them had brought any whispers of the missing Stark girl, but there had been determination in Sansa's eyes, when she insisted the Starks would return to Winterfell once more. 

A ghost of something passed over Arya's eyes, a darkness that made Jon shiver with the cold, recognizing the beast that dwelled within his own chest.

"I was on my way to King's Landing," she said, her voice as soft as the snow falling to the ground. "I was going to kill Cersei." Arya's words were plain and unadorned. It was a jarring adjustment for Jon, who had spent moons forcing himself into the game of carefully constructed statements, where words were sharper weapons than Longclaw. To hear Arya speak so simply and assuredly, to say nothing of the _meaning_...Jon stared at his little sister, and swallowed back the questions that begged to be asked. "And then I heard Bran and Sansa were in Winterfell. That you had taken it back. That Rickon was alive. And so I came home."

"The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives."

It was Rickon's voice that broke the moment suspended between Arya and Jon, equal parts eager and solemn, spoken with the innocence of a young boy parroting the phrase his father had oft repeated, with the heavy burden of understanding its meaning, when he should have lived many years before knowing the truth of Ned Stark's careful warnings. Jon turned to see his remaining siblings slowly making their way to Jon and Arya, with Sansa pushing Bran's chair across the thick blanket of snow.

"Your queen has settled into her chambers," Sansa explained simply, setting Bran's chair close to the weirwood tree, where he tipped his head back, and closed his eyes. Jon let his gaze rest on his brother, finding the young lord easier to look at than his sister. His heart clenched as her lips twisted around the word _queen_ , a promise, an accusation, a warning all in one. Daenerys was _Jon's_ queen, but not Sansa's. Not the North's. 

Jon took a deep breath. "I claimed Daenerys as my queen"

Arya became still, deadly, beside Jon, and Rickon stiffened, his head moving jerkily toward Jon, his eyes darkening with anger and accusation. Neither Bran nor Sansa moved at all, and Jon found himself searching Sansa's face for a sign of her true feelings. It was a futile exercise, in truth. He trusted her, and she trusted him, but such promises did not grant them the ability to read each other's minds. It might have been a considerable deal easier if they had such a talent. 

Did Jon confirm Sansa's worst fear? Had she suspected as much? Sansa had not wanted Jon to leave for Dragonstone, she had warned him against it. Jon still remembered the fear in her voice when she pleaded with him not to go, the wildness in her gaze that he had seen only twice before, both times in connection to Ramsay Bolton. It had been that wild fear, unadulterated and all-consuming, that nearly kept Jon firmly in place, in Winterfell where he belonged. And then Sansa's lips had brushed over his cheek in the ghost of a kiss, gentle and pleading, and the darkness within Jon roared with hunger, and he had wrenched himself away from Winterfell, away from the beast, away from _her_. Had she wondered, even then, if Jon would betray her? 

Did Sansa know what betrayals he had already committed?

"You are still a king." Sansa's words were a declaration, not a question, and Rickon's eyes fastened onto her, his brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of Jon's words, followed by Sansa's. _Sister, not mother,_ Jon saw Rickon mouth to himself again, and his heart trembled further against his breast.

"Aye," Jon said with a nod. "I am still King. The North is not mine to give away." 

"It is."

Bran's voice, strange and distant, though still wholly _Bran_ , broke the tension that had settled, and Jon tore his gaze away from Sansa's deep eyes, and turned to his younger brother, already shaking his head.

"No, Bran. I was named King for Rickon." The technicalities of it were complicated. Jon was not quite a regent - no matter what he had allowed Daenerys to believe - but he would willingly step down if Rickon should come of age, and decide he wanted the crown after all. Though now that Bran had returned, Jon wore the crown that rightfully belonged to _him_. Shame bled through his veins, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Bran cut him off.

"I cannot be King, Jon. I am the Three-Eyed Raven." 

Jon's gaze returned to his other siblings. Arya looked exasperated, and there was a pinch to Sansa's mouth, but Rickon just looked interested, hanging onto Bran's words.

"I don't understand."

"The gods granted me sight, when they took away my legs." Jon frowned, staring at Bran, as if he could decipher meaning from the young man's complicated words. "I began having visions after my fall. Visions of things that would come to pass. Things that had already passed. I traveled Beyond the Wall. It was there that I became the Three-Eyed Raven. I see past, present, and future." 

Jon could hardly wrap his mind around it all, feeling unsteadied by Bran's words. Such magic seemed impossible. He wanted to scoff, and accuse Bran of listening to too many of Old Nan's tales as a youth. But how many of the woman's tales had proven to be true? How had Bran known of Viserion's fall and subsequent resurrection through the Night King's dark magic? Sam claimed it was Bran who told him of the Tarlys' executions, a truth that not even Jon had known. Jon could have believed Sansa's spies to be responsible for the latter, but not even Sansa had spies within the Army of the Dead. Her task was the South, and all of Westeros. Jon's eyes were the ones settled North. How could Bran possess such knowledge, unless he was what he claimed to be?

"I have seen your past, Jon." 

Sansa stiffened, her first reaction to anything Bran had said, and Jon's eyes flew to her, examining her with a sharp gaze. She was pointedly not looking at him, her eyes focused on the red leaves of the weirwood tree instead, the fiery crown adorning the pale white tree that reminded Jon of Sansa herself. 

"What do you mean?" Jon asked carefully, and finally, Bran met his gaze, his eyes cool and unwavering, as he stared at Jon.

"I know who your mother is, Jon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me at [tumblr](http://cat-stark.tumblr.com/).


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